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THE 



BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 



BY 

FRANK Aretas Haskell 

First Lieutenant, 6th Wisconsin Infantry 

Aide to Brigadier General Gibbon 
Colonel, 36th Wisconsin Infantry, U. S. V. 



BOSTON : 

Published under the auspices of the Commandery of the State of 

Massachusetts, Military Order of the Loyal Legion 

OF THE United States 






The Ml'dge Press 

55 Franklin St. 

Boston 

1908 



Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the 
United States. 

COMMANDERY OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



Boston, March 4, 1908. 

The story of the Battle of Gettysburg was written by Lieu- 
tenant Haskell, within a few days after its occurrence. It 
was addressed to his brother, and was printed for private 
circulation about fifteen years afterwards. It was reprinted 
in 1898 as part of the History of the Class of 1854, Dartmouth 
College, in honor of his memory, but with certain omissions 
which are explained in a foot note by Captain Daniel Hall, a 
classmate, and an aide upon the staff of General Howard, 
who prepared the story for re-publication. The circulation of 
these editions was so limited that the attention of the great 
majority of military students was not drawn to them. 



iv 

A few of our members becoming impressed with the value 
of this graphic narrative, as an incentive to patriotic thought, 
requested and obtained permission to republish it under the 
auspices of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal 
Legion. 

Colonel Frank Aretas Haskell, son of Aretas and Ann (Fol- 
son) Haskell, was born in Tunbridge, Vermont, July 13th, 
1828, graduated at Dartmouth College with the Class of 1854, 
and successfully practised law at Madison, Wisconsin, until 
the outbreak of the war. 

He entered the service in July, 1861, as Adjutant of the 6th 
Wisconsin infantry, and in June, 1862, became an aide-de- 
camp upon the staff of Brigadier General John Gibbon and 
was serving as such at the time of this narrative. On Febru- 
ary 9th, 1864:, he was commissioned Colonel of the 36th Wis- 
consin Volunteers and organized the regiment which at his 
request was assigned to the First Brigade, Second Division, 
Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, the Division being then 
commanded by General Gibbon, General Hancock commanding 
the Corps. He participated with zeal and gallantry in all the 
great battles fought by the Army of the Potomac until his death. 

In the advance of Gibbon's Division at the battle of Cold 
Harbor against a strongly intrenched position, upon the death 



of Colonel Henry McKeen, he succeeded to the command of 
the Brigade and under a heavy artillery and musketry fire, 
Colonel Haskell also fell mortally wounded. In his "History 
of the Second Army Corps," Brevet Brigadier General Francis 
A. Walker, writing of Gettysburg, mentions Lieutenant Has- 
kell as having " so distinguished himself on the 3rd " and as 
"bravest of the brave." And again " Colonel Frank A. Has- 
kell of Wisconsin had been known for his intelligence and 
courage, for his generosity of character and his exquisite cul- 
ture long before the third day of Gettysburg, when acting as 
Aide to General Gibbon, he rode mounted between the two 
lines, then swaying backward and forward under each other's 
fire, calling upon the men of the Second Division to follow 
him, and setting an example of valor and self devotion, never 
forgotten by any man of the thousands who witnessed it. He 
was promoted from a lieutenancy to a colonelcy for his 
bravery on this occasion." 

Major General Hancock said in his last report on Gettys- 
burg : "I desire particularly to refer to the services of a gal- 
lant young officer, First Lieutenant F. A. Haskell, Aide-de- 
Camp to General Gibbon, who at a critical period of the Bat- 
tle, when the contending forces were not fifty yards apart, 
believing that an example was necessary, and ready to sacri- 



fice his life, rode between the contending lines with the view 
of giving encouragement to ours and leading it forward, he 
being at the moment the only mounted officer in a similar posi- 
tion. He was slightly wounded, and his horse was shot in 
several places." Also in a Field Order, dated September 28th, 
1864, he says: "At Cold Harbor the Colonel of the 36th 
Wisconsin, as gallant a soldier as ever lived, fell dead on the 
field." 

General Gibbon held him in esteem as his best friend and 
one of the best soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, and said 
of him: " There was a young man on my staff who had been 
in every battle with me and who did more than any other one 
man to repulse Pickett's assault at Gettysburg and he did the 
part of a general there." 

This was the manner of man from whose glowing words 
we may gain inspiration forty-five years after he penned them. 

CHARLES HUNT, 

Captain, U. S. V., 
Committee on Publication. 






tit^CI'-tf .n„cr. JU>>j t.) 







'A ./I 









THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 



At the Headquarters, Second Corps d'Armee. 
Army of the Potomac, near Harper's Ferry, July 16, 1863. 

The great battle of Gettysburg is now an event of the past. 
The composition and strength of the armies, their leaders, the 
strategy, the tactics, the result, of that field are today by the 
side of those of Waterloo, — matters of history. A few days 
ago these things were otherwise. '^ This great event did not so 
' ' cast its shadows before " as to moderate the hot sunshine 
that streamed upon our preceding march, or to relieve our 
minds of all apprehension of the result of the second gi-eat 
rebel invasion of the soil north of the Potomac. 

*The following foot-note appears in the History of the Class of 1854, 
Dartmouth College. 

"This graphic narrative of the,great battle of Gettysburg was prepared by 
our classmate Haskell, a few days after the event. Few men had such oppor- 
tunity for exact knowledge of the occurrences on that momentous held, as our 
record of him elsewhere shows ; and no one who had the opportunity has im- 
proved it as he did, and given the world so early, so minute, and so comprehen- 
sive a story of that critical and decisive conflict. 

" The narrative went, naturally, to the care of his family, and they have printed 
it in a pamphlet of seventy-two pages. We owe to their courtesy the opportunity 
to reproduce it here, and put it in the hands of every classmate. The wish and 
purpose to do this, whenever a class history should be printed, has been fixed 
for moi'e than thirty years, and has gained strength with every class meeting. 
We set it here, primarily for our own gratification, in our love for Haskell, and 
the honor in which we hold his dear memory. But we do it with the assurance 
that our Alma Mater will thank us for this contribution to her military record, 
and that students of our country's history will find and appreciate its value. 
Hall, who also honored himself and the class in the part he took at Gettysburg, 
testifies to the surprising accuracy of Haskell's story in minute details. Had 
he lived, we cannot doubt that the years would have brought him to conspicu- 
ous service and honor. Dying, as he did, on the field of duty, the country will 
cherish his memory, and give him eminent place among her heroes. 

"Classmate Hall has read this, and an important foot-note on pages 78 and 79 is 
signed by him." 



No, — not many days since, at times we were filled with 
fears and forebodings. The people of the country, I suppose, 
shared the anxieties of the army, somewhat in common with 
us, but they could not have felt them as keenly as we did. 
We were upon the immediate theatre of events as they occur- 
red from day to day, and were of them. We were the army 
whose province it should be to meet this invasion and repel it; 
on us was the responsibility for results, most momentous for 
good or ill, but yet in the future. And so in addition to the 
solicitude of all good patriots, we felt that our own honor as 
men and as an army, as well as the safety of the Capitol and 
the country, was at stake. 

And what if that invasion should be successful, and in the 
coming battle the Army of the Potomac should be over pow- 
ered? Would it not be? When our army was much larger 
than at present, had rested all winter, and, nearly perfect in 
all its departments and arrangements, was the most splendid 
army this continent ever saw, only a part of the rebel force, 
which it now had to contend with, had defeated it, — its leader, 
rather, — at Chancellorsville! Now the rebel had his whole 
force assembled; he was flushed with recent victory; was ar- 
rogant in his career of unopposed invasion; at a favorable 
season of the year, his daring plans, made by no unskilled 
head, to transfer the war from his own to his enemy's ground, 
were being successful; he had gone -days' march from his 
front before Hooker moved or was aware of his departure. 
Then I believe the army in general, both officers and men, had 
no confidence in Hooker. Did they not charge him personally 
with the defeat at Chancellorsville? Were they not still burn- 
ing with indignation against him for that disgrace? And now 
again under his leadership they were marching against the 
enemy! And they knew of nothing, short of the providence 
of God, that could or would remove him. For many reasons, 
during the marches prior to the battle, we were anxious and 
at times heavy at heart. 

But the Army of the Potomac was no band of school girls. 
They were not the men likely to be crushed or utterly discour- 
aged by any mere circumstances in which they might find 



themselves placed. They had lost some battles, — they had 
gained some. They knew what defeat was, and what was 
victory. But here is the greatest praise that I can bestow on 
them, or upon any army ; with the elation of victory, or the 
depression of defeat, amidst the hardest toils of the campaign, 
under unwelcome leadership, at all times and under all cir- 
cumstances, they were a reliable army still. The Army of the 
Potomac would do as it was told, always. 

Well clothed and well fed, — there never could be any 
ground of complaint on these heads, — but a mighty work was 
before them. Onward they moved, — night and day were 
blended, —over many a weary mile, through dust and through 
mud, in the broiling sunshine, in the flooding rain, over steeps, 
through defiles, across rivers, over last year's battle fields, 
where the skeletons of our dead brethren by hundreds lay bare 
and bleaching, weary, without sleep for days, tormented with 
the newspapers and their rumors that their enemy was in 
Philadelphia, in Baltimore, in all places where he was not, — 
yet these men could still be relied upon, I believed, when the 
day of conflict should come. ^^ Haec olim meninisse juvohitr'' 
We did not then know this. I mention them now that you 
may see that in these times we had several matters to think 
about, and to do, that were not so pleasant as sleeping upon a 
bank of violets in the shade. 

In moving from near Falmouth, Ya., the army was formed 
in several columns, and took several roads. The Second Corps, 
the rear of the whole, was the last to move, and left Falmouth 
at daybreak on the 15th of June, and pursued its march 
through Aquia, Dumfries, Wolf Eun Shoals, Centerville, 
Gainesville, Thoroughfare Gap, — this last we left on the 25th, 
marching back to Haymarket, where we had a skirmish with 
the cavalry and horse artillery of the enemy, — Gum Spring, 
crossing the Potomac at Edwards' Ferry, thence through 
Poolesville, Frederick, Liberty, and Uniontown, We marched 
from near Frederick to Uniontown, a distance of thirty-two 
miles, from eight o'clock a. m. to nine p. m. on the 28th. I 
think this is the longest march accomplished in so short a time 
by a corps during the war. On the 28th, while we were near 



this latter place, we breathed a full breath of joy and of hope. 
The providence of God had been with us, — we ought not to 
have doubted it — General Meade commanded the Army of the 
Potomac! 

Not a favorable time, one would be apt to suppose, to change 
the General of a large army on the eve of battle, the result of 
which might be to destroy the government and the country. 
But it should have been done long before ; at all events, any 
change could not have been for the worse, and the adminis- 
tration, therefore, liazarded little in making it now. From 
this moment my own mind was easy concerning results. I 
now felt that we had a clear-headed, honest soldier to com- 
mand the army, who would do his best always, — that there 
would be no repetition of Chancellorsville. Meade was not as 
much known in the army as many of ihe other corps com- 
manders, but the officers who knew, all thought highly of him ; 
a man of great modesty, with none of those qualities which 
are noisy and assuming, and hankering for cheap newspaper 
fame, — not at all of the ''■gallajif^ Sickles stamp. I happened 
to know much of General Meade. He and General Gibbon 
have always been very intimate, and I had seen much of him. 
I think my own uotions concerning General Meade at this time 
were shared quite generally by the army ; at all events, all 
^^ho knew him shared them. 

By this time, by reports that were not mere rumors, we be- 
gan to hear frequently of the enemy and of his proximity. 
His cavalry was all about us, making little raids here and 
there, capturing now and then a few of our wagons, and steal- 
ing a good many horses, but doing us really the least amount 
possible of harm, for we were not by these means impeded at 
all, and this cavalry gave no information at all to Lee, that he 
could rely upon, of the movements of the Army of the Poto- 
mac. The infantry of the enemy was at this time in the neigh 
borhood of Hagerstown, Chambersburg, and some had been at 
Gettysburg, possibly were there now. Gettysburg was a point 
of strategic importance ; a great many roads, some ten or 
twelve at least, concentrated there, so the army could easily 
converge to, or, should a further march be necessai-y, diverge 



from this point. General Meade, therefore, resolved to try to 
seize Gettysburg, and accordingly gave the necessary orders 
for the concentration of his different columns there. Under 
the new auspices the army brightened and moved on with 
a more majestic step toward the yet undefined field of 
conflict. 

The First Corps, General Reynolds, already having the ad- 
vance, was ordered to push forward rapidly, and take and hold 
the town, if he could ; the rest of the army would assemble to 
his support. Buford's cavalry co-operated with this corps, and 
on the morning of the 1st of July found the enemy near Get- 
tysburg and to the west, and promptly engaged him. The 
First Corps, having bivouacked the night before south of the 
town, came up rapidly to Buford's support, and immediately 
a sharp battle was opened with the advance of the enemy. 
The First Division, General Wadsworth, was the first of the 
infantry to become engaged ; but the other two, commanded 
respectively by Generals Robinson and Doubleday, were close 
at hand, and forming the line of battle to the west and north- 
west of the town, at a mean distance of about a mile away. 
The battle continued for some hours with various success, 
which was on the whole with us until near noon. At this 
time a lull occurred, which was occupied by both sides in 
supervising and re-establishing the hastily formed lines of the 
morning. New divisions of the enemy were constantly arriv- 
ing and taking up positions, for this purpose marching in upon 
the various roads that terminate at the town, from the west 
and north. The position of the First Corps was then becom- 
ing perilous in the extreme, but it was improved at a little be- 
fore noon by the arrival upon the field of two divisions of the 
Eleventh Corps, General Howard, these divisions commanded 
respectively by Generals Schurz and Barlow, who, by order, 
posted their commands to the right of the First Corps, with 
their right retired, forming an angle with the line of the First 
Corps, Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, the 
enemy, now in overwhelming force, resumed the battle with 
spirit. The portion of the Eleventh Corps, making ineffectual 
opposition to the advancing enemy, soon began to fall back. 



6 

General Barlow was badly wounded, and their retreat soon be- 
came a disorderly rout and panic. They were hotly pursued 
in their flight through the town, and, owing to their disor- 
ganized condition, large numbers fell into the hands of the 
enemy. 

The First Corps, deprived of this support, out-flauked upon 
either hand, and engaged in front, was compelled to yield 
the field. Making its last stand upon what is called "Semi- 
nary Ridge,'' not far from the town, it fell hack in consider- 
able confusion, through the southwest part of the town, mak- 
ing brave resistance, however, but with considerable loss. The 
enemy did not see fit to follow, or to attempt to, further than 
the town, and so the fight of the 1st of July closed here. I 
suppose our losses during the day would exceed five thousand, 
of whom a large number were prisoners. Such usually is the 
kind of loss sustained by the Eleventh Corps. You will re- 
member that the old "Iron Brigade" is in the First Corps, and 
consequently shared this fight, and I hear their conduct praised 
on all hands. 

In the Second Wisconsin, Colonel Fairchild lost his left arm; 
Lieutenant-Colonel Stevens was mortally wounded, and Major 
Mansfield was wounded ; Lieutenant-Colonel Collis, of the Sev- 
enth Wisconsin, and Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley, of the Nine- 
teenth Indiana, were badly, dangerously wounded, the latter 
by the loss of his right leg above the knee. 

I saw "John Burns," the only citizen of Gettysburg who 
fought in the battle, and I asked him what troops he fought 
with. He said, "Oh, I pitched in with them Wisconsin fel- 
lers." I asked what sort of men they were, and he answered: 
"They fit terribly, — the Rebs couldn't make anything of them 
fellers." And so the brave compliment the brave. This man 
was touched by three bullets from the enemy, but not ser- 
iously wounded. 

But the loss of the enemy to-day was severe also, — probably 
in killed and wounded as heavy as our owu, but not so great 
in prisoners. Of these latter the "Iron Brigade" captured al- 
most an entire Mississippi brigade, however. 

Of the events so far, of the 1st of July, I do not speak from 



personal knowledge. I shall now tell my introduction to these 
events. 

At eleven o'clock a. m., on that day, the Second Corps was 
halted at Taneytown, which is thirteen miles from Gettysburg, 
south; and there, awaiting orders, the men were allowed to 
make coffee and rest. At between one and two o'clock in the 
afternoon, a message was brought to General Gibbon requir- 
ing his immediate presence at the headquarters of General 
Hancock, who commanded the corps. I went with General 
Gibbon, and we rode at a rapid gallop to General Hancock. 
At General Hancock's headquarters the following was learned: 
the First Corps had met the enemy at Gettysburg, and had 
possession of the town; General Eeynolds was badly, it was 
feared mortally, wounded; the fight of the First Corps still 
continued. By General Meade's order. General Hancock was 
to hurry forward and take command upon the field of all 
troops there, or which should arrive there; the Eleventh Corps 
was near Gettysburg when the messenger who told of the 
fight left there, and the Third Corps was marching up, by 
order, on the Emmettsburg Road. General Gibbon — he was 
not the ranking officer of the Second Corps after Hancock — 
was ordered to assume the command of the Second Corps. 

All this was sudden, and for that reason, at least, exciting; 
but there were other elements in this information that aroused 
our profoundest interest. The great battle that we had so 
anxiously looked for during so many days had at length 
opened. It was a relief, in some sense, to have these accidents 
of time and place established. What would be the result? 
Might not the enemy fall upon and destroy the First Corps 
before succor could arrive? 

General Hancock with his personal staff, at about two 
o'clock p. M., galloped off towards Gettysburg. General Gib- 
bon took his place in command of the corps, appointing me his 
Acting Assistant Adjuiant-Oeneral. The Second Corps took 
arms at once, and moved rapidly towards the field. It was 
not long before we began to hear the dull booming of the guns ; 
and as we advanced, from many an eminence or opening 
among the trees we could look out upon the white battery 



8 

smoke puffing up from the distant field of blood and drifting 
up to the clouds. At these sights and sounds the men looked 
more serious than before, and were more silent; but they 
marched faster, and straggled less. At about five o'clock p. m., 
as we were riding along at the head of the column, we met an 
ambulance, accompanied by two or three wounded officers. 
We knew them to be the staff officers of General Reynolds. 
Their faces told plainly enough what load the vehicle carried — 
it was the dead body of General Reynolds. Very early in the 
action, while seeing personally to the formation of the lines 
under fire, he was shot through the head by a musket or rifle 
bullet, and killed almost instantly. His death at this time 
affected us much, for he was one of the soldier generals of the 
army, — a man whose soul was in his country's work, which 
he did with a soldier's high honor and fidelity. 

I remember seeing him after the first battle of Fredericks- 
burg, — he then commanded the First Corps, — and while 
Meade's and Gibbon's divisions were assaulting the enemy's 
works, he was the very beau ideal of the gallant general. 
Mounted upon a superb black horse, with his head thrown 
back and his great black eyes flashing fire, he was everywhere 
upon the field, seeing all things and giving commands in per- 
son. He died as many a friend, and many a foe, to the coun- 
try have died in this war. 

Just as the dusk of evening fell, from General Meade the 
Second Corps have orders to halt where the head of the col- 
umn then was, and to go into position for the night. The Sec- 
ond Division (Gibbon's) was accordingly put in position upon 
the left of the (Taney town) road, its left near the south-eastern 
base of "Round Top," — of which mountain more anon, —and 
the right near the road ; the Third Division was posted upon 
the right of the road, abreast of the Second ; and the First 
Division in rear of these two, — all facing towards Gettysburg. 
Arms were stacked and the men lay down to sleep, — alas ! 
many of them their last but the great final sleep upon the 
earth. 

Late in the afternoon, as we came near the field, from some 
.slightly wounded men we met, and occasional stragglers from 



the scene of operations in front, we got many rumors, and 
much disjointed information, of battle, of lakes of blood, of 
rout and panic and indescribable disaster; from all of which the 
narrators were just fortunate enough to have barely escaped, 
the sole survivors. These stragglers are always terrible liars! 

About nine o'clock in the evening, while I was yet engaged 
in showing the troops their positions, I met General Hancock, 
then on his way from the front to General Meade, who was 
back towards Taneytown ; and he, for the purpose of having 
me advise General Gibbon, for his information, gave me a 
quite detailed account of the situation of matters at Gettys- 
burg, and of what had transpired subsequently to his arrival 
there. 

He had arrived and assumed command there, just when the 
troops of the First and Eleventh Corps, after their repulse, 
were coming in confusion through the town. Hancock is just 
the man for such an emergency as this. Upon horseback, I 
think he was the most magnificeut looking general in the 
whole Army of the Potomac, at that time. With a large, well- 
shaped person, always dressed with elegance, even upon that 
field of confusion, he would look as if he was ' 'monarch of all 
he surveyed," and few of his subjects Avould dare to question 
his right to command, or do aught else but obey. His quick 
eye, in a flash, saw what was to be done, and his voice and his 
royal hand at once commenced to do it. General Howard had 
put one of his divisions — Steinwehr's — with some batteries, in 
position, upon a commanding eminence at the "Cemetery," 
which, as a reserve, had not participated in the fight of the 
day ; and this division was now of course steady. Around this 
division the fugitives were stopped, and the shattered brigades 
and regiments, as they returned, were formed upon either 
flank, and faced toward the enemy again. A show of order, 
at least, speedily came from chaos. The rout was at an end ; 
the first and eleventh corps were in line of battle again, — not 
very systematically formed, perhaps, — in a splendid position, 
and in a condition to offer resistance, should the enemy be 
willing to try them. These formations were all accom- 
plished long before night. Then some considerable portion of 



10 

the Third Corps — General Sickles — came up by the Emmetts- 
burg road, and was formed to the left of the Taneytown road, 
on an extension of the line that I have mentioned ; and all of 
the Twelfth Corps — General Slocum — arriving before night, 
the divisions were put in position, to the right of the troops 
already there, to the east of the Baltimore Pike. The enemy 
"was in the town, and behind it, and to the east and west, and 
appeared to be in strong force, and was jubilant over his day's 
success. Such was the posture of affairs as evening came on 
of the 1st of July. General Hancock was hopeful, and in the 
best of spirits ; and from him I also learned that the reason of 
halting the Second Corps in its present position was, that it 
was not then known where, for the coming fight, the line of 
battle would be formed — up near the town, where the troops 
then were, or farther back towards Taneytown. He would 
give his views on this subject to General Meade, which were 
in favor of the line near the town, — the one that was subse- 
quently adopted, — and Genei*al Meade would determine. 

The night before a great pitched battle would not ordinarily, 
I suppose, be a time for much sleep to generals and their staff 
officers. We needed it enough, but there was work to be done. 

This war makes strange confusion of night and day! I did 
not sleep at all that night. It would perhaps be expected, on 
the eve of such great events, that one should have some pecu- 
liar sort of feelings, something extraordinary, some great 
arousing and excitement of the sensibilities and faculties, com- 
mensurate with the event itself; this certainly would be very 
poetical and pretty, but so far as I am concerned, and I think 
I can speak for the army in this matter, there was nothing of 
the kind. Men who have volunteered to fight the battles of 
the country, had met the enemy in many battles, and had 
been constantly before them, as have the Army of the Poto- 
mac, were too old soldiers, and long ago too well have 
weighed chances and probabilities, to be so disturbed now. 
No, I believe the army slept soundly that night, and well; and 
I am glad the men did, for they needed it. 

At midnight General Meade and staff rode by General Gib- 
bon's headquarters, on their way to the field; and in conver- 



11 

sation with General Gibbon, General Meade announced that 
he had decided to assemble the whole army before Gettysburg 
and offer the enemy battle there. The Second Corps would 
move at the earliest daylight, and take up its position. 

At three o'clock, a. m., of the 2d of July, the sleepy soldiers 
of the Second Corps were aroused; before six the corps was 
up to the field, and halted temporarily by the side of the 
Taneytown road, upon which it had marched, while some 
movements of other troops were being made, to enable it to 
take position in the order of battle. The morning was thick 
and sultry, the sky overcast with low, vapory clouds. As we 
approached, all was astir upon the crests near the Cemetery, 
and the work of preparation was speedily going on. Men 
looked like giants there in the mist, and the guns of the 
frowning batteries so big that it was a relief to know that 
they were our friends. 

Without a topographical map, some description of the 
ground and localities is necessary to a clear understanding of 
the battle. With the sketch that I have rudely drawn, with- 
out scale or compass, I hope you may understand my descrip- 
tion. The line of battle as it was established on the evening 
of the 1st, and morning of the 2d of July, was in the form of 
the letter " U," the ti-oops facing outwards, and the Cemetery, 
which is at the point of the sharpest curvature of the line, 
being due south of the town of Gettysburg. Round Top, the 
extreme left of the line, is a small, woody, rocky elevation, a 
very little w^est of south of the town, and nearly two miles 
from it. The sides of this are in places very steep, and its 
rocky summit is almost inaccessible. A short distance north 
of this is a smaller elevation called "Little Eound Top." On 
the very top of Little Round Top we had heavy rifled guns in 
position during the battle. Near the right of the hne is a 
small, woody eminence, named ' ' Gulp's Hill. ' ' Three roads 
come up to the town from the south, which near the town are 
quite straight, and at the town the extreme ones unite, form- 
ing an angle of about sixty or more degrees. Of these the 
farthest to the east is the Baltimore Pike, which passes by the 
east entrance to the Cemetery; the farthest to the west is the 



12 

Emmettsburg road, which is wholly outside of our line of 
battle, but near the Cemetery is within a hundred' yards of it; 
the " Taneytown Road " is between these, running nearly due 
north and south, by the eastern base of Round Top, by the 
western side of the Cemetery, and uniting with the Emmetts- 
burg road between the Cemetery and the town. High ground 
near the Cemetery is named " Cemetery Ridge." 

The Eleventh Corps — General Howard — was posted at the 
Cemetery, some of its batteries and troops actually among the 
graves and monuments, which they used for shelter from the 
enemy's fire; its left resting upon the Taneytown road, and 
extending thence to the east, crossing the Baltimore Pike, and 
then bending backwards towards the southeast; on the right 
of the Eleventh came the First Corps, now, since the death of 
General Reynolds, commanded by General Newton, formed in 
a line curving still more to the south. The troops of these 
two corps were reformed on the morning of the 2d, in order 
that each might be by itself, and to correct some things not 
done well during the hasty formation here the day before. 
To the right of the First Corps, and on an extension of the 
same line, along the crest and down the southeastern slope of 
Gulp's Hill was posted the Twelfth Corps — General Slocum — 
its right, which was the extreme right of the line of the army, 
resting near a small stream called " Rock Run." No changes 
that I am aware of occurred in the formation of this corps on 
the morning of the 2d. The Second Corps, after the brief 
halt that I have mentioned, moved up and took position, its 
right resting upon the Taneytown road, at the left of the 
Eleventh Corps, and extending the line thence, nearly half a 
mile, almost due south, towards Round Top, with its divisions 
in the following order, from right to left: the Third, General 
Alex. Hays; the Second (Gibbon's) General Harrow (tempo- 
rarily); the First, General Caldwell. The formation was in 
line by brigade in column, the brigades being in column by 
regiment, with forty paces interval between regimental lines, 
the Second and Third having each one, and the First Division 
two brigades. There were four brigades in the First, similarly 
formed, in reserve, one hundred and fifty paces in the rear of 



13 

the line of their respective divisions. That is, the line of the 
corps, exclusive of its reserves, was the length of six regi- 
ments, deployed, and the intervals between them, some of 
which were left wide for the posting of the batteries, and con- 
sisted of four common deployed lines, each of two ranks of 
men; and a little more than one- third was in reserve. 

The five batteries, in all twenty-eight guns, were posted as 
follows: Woodruff's Regular, six twelve-pound Napoleons, 
brass, between the two brigades in line of the Third Division; 
Ai-nold's "A," First Rhode Island, six three-inch Parrotts, 
rifled, and Gushing' s Regular, four three-inch ordnance, rifled, 
between the Third and Second Divisions ; Hazard's (com- 
manded during the battle by Lieutenant Brown) "B," First 
Rhode Island, and Rorty's New York, each six twelve-pound 
Napoleons, brass, between the Second and First Divisions. 

I have been thus specific in the description of the posting 
and formation of the Second Corps, because they were works 
that I assisted to perform ; and also that the other corps were 
similarly posted with reference to the strength of the lines, 
and the intermixing of infantry and artillery. From this, you 
may get a notion of the whole. 

The Third Corps — General Sickles — the remainder of it ar- 
riving upon the field this morning, was posted upon the left of 
the Second, extending the line still in the direction of Round 
Top, with its left resting near Little Round Top. The left of 
the Third Corps was the extreme left of the line of battle, un- 
til changes occurred which will be mentioned in the proper 
place. The Fifth Corps — General Sykes — arriving on the 
Baltimore Pike about this time, was massed there near the 
line of battle, and held in reserve until sometime in the after- 
noon, when it changed position, as I shall describe. 

I cannot give a detailed account of the cavalry, for I saw 
but little of it. It was posted near the wings, and watched 
the roads and movements of the enemy upon the flanks of the 
army, but further than this participated but little in the bat- 
tle. Some of it was also used for guarding the trains, which 
were far to the rear. The artillery reserve, which consisted of 
a good many batteries, though I cannot give the number, or 



14 

the r umber of gUDS, was posted between the Baltimore Pike 
and the Taneytowu Eoad, on very nearly the centre of a 
direct line passing through the extremities of the wings. Thus 
it could be readily sent to any part of the line. The Sixth 
Corps — General Sedgwick — did not arrive upon the field un- 
til sometime after noon ; but it was now not very far away, 
and v^^as coming up rapidly upon the Baltimore Pike. No 
fears were entertained that "Uncle John," as his men called 
General Sedgwick, would not be in the right place at the 
right time. 

These dispositions were all made early, I think before eight 
o'clock in the morning ; skirmishers were posted well out all 
around the line, and all put in readiness for battle. The enemy 
did not yet demonstrate himself. With a look at the ground 
now, I think you may understand the movements of the bat- 
tle. From Round Top, by the line of battle, round to the ex- 
treme right, I suppose is about three miles. From this 
same eminence to the Cemetery extends a long ridge or hill — 
more resembling a great wave than a hill, however — with its 
crest, which was the line of battle, quite direct between the 
points mentioned. To the west of this, that is, towards the 
enemy, the ground falls away, by a very gradual descent, 
across the Emmettsburg Road, and then rises again, forming 
another ridge, nearly parallel to the first, but inferior in alti- 
tude, and something over a thousand yards away. A belt of 
woods extends partly along this second ridge, and partly far- 
ther to the west, at distances of from one thousand to thirteen 
hundred yards away from our line. Between these ridges, and 
along their slopes, that is, in front of the Second and Third 
Corps, the ground is cultivated, and is covered with fields of 
wheat, now nearly ripe, with grass and pastures, with some 
peach orchards, with fields of waving corn, and some farm- 
houses and their out-buildings along the Emmettsburg road. 
There are very few places within the limits mentioned where 
troops or guns could move concealed. There are some oaks, of 
considerable growth, along the position of the right of the Sec- 
ond Corps, — a group of small trees, sassafras and oak, in front 
of the right of the Second Division of this corps, also ; and con- 



15 

siderable woods immediately in front of the left of the Third 
Corps, and also to the west of, and near Round Top. At the 
Cemetery, where is Cemetery Ridge, to which the line of the 
Eleventh Corps conforms, is the highest point in our line, ex- 
cept Round Top. From this the ground falls quite abruptly to 
the town, the nearest point of which is some five hundred 
yards away from the line, and is cultivated, and checkered 
with stone fences. The same is the character of the ground 
occupied by, and in front of the left of the First Corps, which 
is also on a part of Cemetery Ridge. The right of this corps, 
and the whole of the Twelfth, are along Culp's Hill, and in 
woods, and the ground is very rocky, and in some places in 
front precipitous, — a most admirable position for defence 
from an attack in front, where, on account of the woods, no 
artillery could be used with effect by the enemy. Then these 
last three mentioned corps had, by taking rails, by appropri- 
ating stone fences, by felling trees, and digging the earth, dur- 
ing the night of the 1st of July, made for themselves excellent 
breastworks, which were a very good thing indeed. The posi- 
tion of the First and Twelfth Corps was admirably strong, 
therefore. Within the line of battle is an irregular basin, 
somewhat wooded and rocky in places, but presenting few ob- 
stacles to the moving of troops and guns, from place to place 
along the lines, and also affording the advantage that all such 
movements, by reason of the surrounding crests, were out of 
view of the enemy. On the whole this was an admirable posi- 
tion to fight a defensive battle, — good enough, I thought, 
when I saw it first, and better, I believe, than could be found 
elsewhere in a circle of many miles. Evils, sometimes at least, 
are blessings in disguise, for the repulse of our forces, and the 
death of Reynolds, on the 1st of July, with the opportune 
arrival of Hancock to arrest the tide of fugitives and fix it 
on these heights, gave us this position. Perhaps the position 
gave us the victory. 

On arriving upon the field General Meade established his 
headquarters at a shabby little farmhouse on the left of the 
Taneytown Road, the house nearest the line and a little more 
than five hundred yards in rear of what became the centre 



16 

of the position of the Second Corps, — a point where he could 
communicate readily and rapidly with all parts of the array. 
The advantages of this position, briefly, were these: the flanks 
were quite well protected by the natural defences there, 
— Round Top upon the left, and rocky, steep, untraversable 
ground upon the right. Our line was more elevated than that 
of the enemy, consequently our artillery had a greater range 
and power than theirs. On account of the convexity of our 
line, every part of the line could be reinforced by troops having 
to move a shorter distance than if the line were straight; 
further, for the same reason, the line of the enemy must be 
concave and consequently longer, and, with an equal force, 
thinner, and so weaker, than ours. Upon those parts of our 
line which were wooded, neither we nor the enemy could use 
artillery; but they were so strong by nature, aided by art, as 
to be readily defended by a small against a very large body of 
infantry. Where the line was open, it had the advantage of 
having open country in front; consequently, the enemy could 
not surprise us; we were on a crest, which, besides the other 
advantages that I have named, had this : the enemy must 
advance to the attack up an ascent, and must therefore move 
slower, and be, before coming upon us, longer under our fire, 
as well as more exhausted. These and some other things 
rendered our position admirable for a defensive battle. 

So, before a great battle, was ranged the Army of the Poto- 
mac. The day wore on, the weather still sultry, and the sky 
overcast, with a mizzling effort at rain. When the audience 
has all assembled, time seems long until the curtain rises: so 
to-day, "Will there be a battle to-day? " '* Shall we attack 
the rebel? " " Will he attack us? " These and similar ques- 
tions, later in the morning, were thought and asked a million 
times. 

Meanwhile, on our part all was put in the best state of 
readiness for battle. Surgeons were busy riding about, select- 
ing eligible places for hospitals, and hunting streams and 
springs and wells. Ambulances and ambulance men were 
brought up near the lines, and stretchers gotten ready for use. 
Who of us could tell but that he would be the first to need 



17 

them? The Provost Guards were busy driving up all the 
stragglers and causing them to join their regiments. Am- 
munition wagons were driven to suitable places, and pack 
mules bearing boxes of cartridges, and the commands were 
informed where they might be found. Officers were sent to 
see that the men had each his hundred rounds of ammunition. 
Generals and their staffs were riding here and there among 
their commands to see that all was right. A staff officer or 
an orderly might be seen galloping furiously in the transmis- 
sion of some order or message. All, all was ready, and yet 
the sound of no gun had disturbed the air or ear to-day. 

Here let me state that according to the best information 
that I could get, I think a fair estimate of the rebel force 
engaged in this battle would be a little upwards of a hundred 
thousand men of all arms. Of course we cannot now know, 
but there are reasonable data for this estimate. At all events 
there was no disparity of numbers in the two opposing armies. 
We thought the enemy to be somewhat more numerous than 
we, and he probably was. But if ninety-five men should fight 
with a hundred and five, the latter would not always be 
victorious, and shght numerical differences are of much less 
consequence in great bodies of men. Skilful generalship and 
good fighting are the jewels of war. These concurring are 
difficult to overcome; and these, not numbers, must determine 
this battle. 

During all the morning, and the night, too, the skirmishers 
of the enemy had been confronting those of the Eleventh, 
First, and Twelfth Corps. At the time of the fight of the 1st 
he was seen in heavy force north of the town; he was beUeved 
to be now in the same neighborhood in full force. But from 
the woody character of the country, and thereby the careful 
concealment of troops, which the rebel is always sure to effect, 
during the early part of the morning almost nothing was 
actually seen by us of the invaders of the North. About nine 
o'clock in the morning, I should think, our glasses began to 
reveal them at the west and northwest of the town, a mile 
and a half away from our lines. They were moving toward 
our left, but the woods of Seminary Ridge so concealed them 



18 

that we could not make out much of their movements. About 
this time some rifled guns in the Cemetery at the left of the 
Eleventh Corps opened fire — almost the first shots of any 
kind this morning ; and when it was found they were firing 
at a rebel line of skirmishers merely, that were advancing 
upon the left of that and the right of the Second Corps, the 
officer iu charge of the guns was ordered to cease firing, and 
was rebuked for having fired at all. These skirmishers soon 
engaged those of the right of the Second Corps, who stood 
their ground and were reinforced to make the line entirely 
secure. The rebel skirmish line kept extending farther and 
farther to their right, towards our left ; they would dash up 
close upon ours, and sometimes drive them back a short dis- 
tance, in turn to be repulsed themselves : and so they con- 
tinued to do until their right was opposite the extreme left of 
the Third Corps. By these means they had ascertained the 
position and extent of our line, but their own masses were 
still out of view. From the time that the firing commenced, 
as I have mentioned, it was kept up by the skirmishers until 
quite noon, often briskly, but with no definite results further 
than those mentioned, and with no considerable show of 
infantry on the part of the enemy to support. There was a 
farmhouse and outbuildings in front of the Third Division of 
the Second Corps, at which the skirmishers of the enemy had 
made a dash and dislodged ours posted there ; and from this 
their sharp-shooters began to annoy our line of skirmishers, 
and even the main line, with their long-range rifles. I was up 
to the line, and a bullet from one of the rascals hid there 
hissed by my cheek so close that I felt the movement of the 
air distinctly. And so I was not at all displeased when I saw 
one of our regiments go down and attack and capture the 
house and buildings and several prisoners, after a spirited 
little fight, and by General Hays' order, burn the buildings to 
the ground. 

About noon the Signal Corps, from the top of Little Round 
Top, with their powerful glasses, and the cavalry at our ex- 
treme left began to report the enemy in heavy force, making 
dispositions of battle to the west of Round Top and opposite 



19 

to the left of the Third Corps. Some few prisoners had been 
captured, some deserters from the enemy had come in, and 
from all som-ces by this time we had much important and 
reliable information of the enemy, of his dispositions and 
apparent purposes. The rebel infantry consisted of three 
army corps, each consisting: of three divisions. Longstreet, 
Ewell, — the same whose leg Gibbon's shell had knocked off at 
Gainesville on the 28th of August last year, — and A. P. Hill, 
each in the rebel service having the rank of lieutenant-general, 
were the commanders of these corps. Longstreet's division 
commanders were Hood, McLaws, and Pickett ; Ewell's were 
Rodes, Early, and Johnson ; and Hill's were Pender, Heth, 
and Anderson. Stewart and Fitz Lee commanded divisions 
of the rebel cavalry. The rank of these division commands, I 
believe, was that of major-general. The rebel had about as 
much artillery as we did, but we never thought much of this 
arm in the hands of our adversaries. They have courage 
enough, but not the skill to handle it well. They generally 
fire too high, and their ammunition is assuredly of a very 
inferior quality. And of late we have begun to despise the 
enemy's cavalry, too ; it used to have enterprise and dash, 
but in the late cavalry contests ours has always been victor, 
and so now we think that about all this chivalry is fit for is to 
steal a few of our mules occasionally and their negro drivers. 
The infantry of the rebel army, however, is good — to deny 
this is useless. I never had any desire to ; and if one should 
count up, it would possibly be found that they have gained 
more victories over us than we have over them ; and they 
will now, doubtless, fight well, even desperately. And it is 
not horses or cannon that will determine the result of this 
confronting of the two armies, but the men with the muskets 
must do it — the infantry must do the sharp work. So we 
watched all this posting of forces as closely as possible, for it 
was a matter of vital interest to us, and all information relat- 
ing to it was hurried to the commander of the army. The 
rebel line of battle was concave, bending around our own, 
with the extremities of the wings opposite to or a little outside 
of ours. Longstreet's Corps was upon their right, Hill's in 



20 

the centre ; these two rebel corps occupied the second or 
inferior ridge to the west of our position, as I have mentioned, 
with Hill's left bending towards and resting near the town, 
and E well's was upon their left, his troops being in and to the 
east of the town. This last corps confronted our Twelfth, 
First, and the right of the Eleventh Corps. When I have 
said ours was a good defensive position, this is equivalent to 
saying that that of the enemy was not a good offensive one, 
for these are relative terms and cannot be both predicated of 
the respective positions of the two armies at the same time. 
The reasons that theirs was not a good offensive position are 
the same already stated or ours for defence. Excepting occa- 
sionally for a brief time during some movement of the troops, 
or when advancing to attack, their men and guns were kept 
constantly and carefully, by woods and inequalities of grounds, 
out of our view. 

Noon is past, one o'clock is past, and, save the skirmishing 
that I have mentioned, and an occasional shot from our guns, 
at something or other of the nature of wliich the ones who 
fired it were ignorant, there was no fight yet. Our arms were 
still stacked, and the men were at ease. As I looked upon 
those interminable rows of muskets along the crests, and saw 
how cool and goud spirited the men were, who were lounging 
about on the ground among them, I could not and did not 
have any fears as to the result of the battle. The storm was 
near, and we all knew it by this time, which was to rain death 
upon these crests and down these slopes, and yet the men 
who could not and would not escape it, were as calm and 
cheerful generally as if nothing unusual were about to happen! 
You see, these men were veterans, and had been in such 
places so often that they were accustomed to them. But I 
was well pleased with the tone of the men to-day ; I could 
almost see the foreshadowing of victory upon their faces, I 
thought. And I thought, too, as I had seen the mighty prep- 
arations go on to completion for this great conflict, the 
marshalling of these two hundred thousand men and the guns, 
of the hosts that now but a narrow valley divided, that to 
have been in such a battle, and to survive on the side of the 



21 

victors would be glorious. Oh, the world is most unchristian 
yet! 

Somewhat after one o'clock p. m. — the skirmish firing had 
nearly ceased now — a movement of the Third Corps occurred, 
which I shdll describe. I cannot conjecture the reason of this 
movemeut. From the position of the Third Corps, as I have 
meutioned, to the second ridge west, the distauce is about a 
thousand yards, and there the Emmettsburg road runs near 
the crest of the ridge. General Sickles commenced to advance 
his whole corps, from the general line, straight to the front, 
with a view to occupy this second ridge along and near the 
roads. What his purpose could have been is past conjecture. 
It was not ordered by General Meade, as I heard him say, 
and he disapproved of it as soon as it was made known to 
him. Generals Hancock and Gibbon, as they saw the move 
in progress, criticised its propriety sharply, as I know, and 
foretold quite accurately what would be the result. I suppose 
the truth probably is that General Sickles supposed he was 
doing for the best ; but he was neither born nor bred a soldier. 
But this move of the Third Corps was an important one — it 
developed the battle ; the results of the move to the corps 
itself we shall see. Oh, if this corps had kept its strong posi- 
tion upon the crest, and, supported by the rest of the army, 
had waited for the attack of the enemy ! 

It was magnificent to see these ten or twelve thousand men 
— they were good men — with their batteries, and some 
squadrons of cavalry upon the left flank, all in battle order, 
in several lines, with flags streaming, sweep steadily down the 
slope, across the valley, and up the next ascent, towards their 
destined position! From our position we could see it all. In 
advance Sickles pushed forward his heavy line of skirmishers, 
who drove back those of the enemy, across the Emmettsburg 
road, and thus cleared the way for the main body. The Third 
Corps now became the absorbing object of interest of all eyes. 
The Second Corps took arms ; and the First Division of this 
corps was ordered to be in readiness to support the Third 
Corps, should circumstances render support necessary. As 
the Third Corps was the extreme left of our line, as it 



22 

advanced, if the enemy was assembling to the west of Round 
Top with a view to turn our left, as we had heard, there would 
be nothing between the left flank of the corps and the enemy ; 
and the enemy would be square upon its flank by the time it 
had attained the road. So when this advance line came near 
the Emmettsburg road, and we saw the squadrons of cavalry 
mentioned come dashing back from their position as flankers, 
and the smoke of some guns, and we heard the reports, away 
to Sickles' left, anxiety became an element in our interest in 
these movements. The enemy opened slowly at first, and 
from long range ; but he was square upon Sickles' left flank. 
General Caldwell was ordered at once to put his division — the 
First of the Second Corps, as mentioned — in motion, and to 
take post in the woods at the west slope of Round Top, in 
such a manner as to resist the enemy should he attempt to 
come around Sickles' left and gain his rear. The division 
moved as ordered, and disappeared from view in the woods, 
towards the point indicated, at between two and three o'clock 
p. M., and the reserve brigade — the First, Colonel Heath 
temporarily commanding — of the Second Division was there- 
upon moved up, and occupied the position vacated by the 
Third Division. About the same time the Fifth Corps could 
be seen marching by the flank from its position on the Balti- 
more Pike, and in the opening of the woods heading for the 
same locality where the First Division of the Second Corps 
had gone. The Sixth Corps had now come up, and was halted 
upon the Baltimore Pike. So the plot thickened. As the 
enemy opened upon Sickles with his batteries, some five or 
six in all, firing slowly, Sickles, with as many, replied, and 
with much more spirit. The artillery fire became quite ani- 
mated, soon ; but the enemy was forced to withdraw his guns 
farther and farther away, and ours advanced upon him. It 
was not long before the cannonade ceased altogether, the 
enemy having retired out of range, and Sickles, having 
temporarily halted his command, pending this, moved forward 
again to the position he desired, or nearly that. 

It was now about five o'clock, and we shall soon see what 
Sickles gained by his move. First we have more artillery 



23 

firing upon Sickles' left — the enemy seems to be opening 
again; and as we watched, the rebel batteries seem to be 
advancing there. The cannonade is soon opened again, and 
with great spirit upon both sides. The enemy's batteries press 
those of Sickles, and pound the shot upon them, and this time 
they in turn begin to retire to positions nearer the infantry. 
The enemy seems to be fearfully in earnest this time. And 
what is more ominous than the thunder or the shot of his 
advancing guns," this time, in the intervals between his batter- 
ies, far to Sickles' left, appear the long licies and the columns 
of the rebel infantry, now unmistakably moving out to the 
attack. The position of the Third Corps became at once one 
of great peril, and it is probable that its commander by this 
time began to realize his true situation. All was astir now on 
our crest. Generals and their staffs were galloping hither and 
thither; the men were all in their places, and you might have 
heard the rattle of ten thousand ramrods, as they drove home 
and "thugged " upon the little globes and cones of lead. As 
the enemy was advancing upon Sickles' flank, he commenced 
a change, or at least a partial one, of front, by swinging back 
his left and throwing forward his right, in order that his lines 
might be parallel to those of his adversary, his batteries mean- 
time doing what they could to check the enemy's advance; 
but this movement was not completely executed before new 
rebel batteries opened upon Sickles* right flank — his former 
front — and in the same quarter appeared the rebel infantry 
also. 

Now came the dreadful battle picture, of which we for a 
time could be but spectators. Upon the front and right flank 
of Sickles came sweeping the infantry of Longstreet and Hill. 
Hitherto there had been skirmishing and artillery practice — 
now the battle begins; for amid the heavier smokes and longer 
tongues of flame of the batteries, now began to appear the 
countless flashes, and the long, fiery sheets of the muskets, 
and the rattle of the volleys mingled with the thunder of the 
guns. We see the long gray lines come sweeping down upon 
Sickles' front, and mix with the battle smoke; now the same 
colors emerge from the bushes and orchards upon his right, 



24 

and envelop his flank in the confusion of the conflict. Oh, the 
din and the roar, and these thirty thousand rebel wolf-cries! 
What a hell is there down that valley! These ten or twelve 
thousand men of the Third Corps fight well, but it soon be- 
comes apparent that they must be swept from the field, or 
perish there where they are doing so well, so thick and over- 
whelming a storm of rebel fire involves them. But these men, 
such as ever escape, must come from the conflict as best they 
can. To move down and support there with other troops is 
out of the question, for this would be to do as Sickles did, to 
relinquish a good position and advance to a bad one. There 
is no other alternative — the Third Corps must fight itself out 
of its position of destruction! What was it ever put there for? 
In the meantime some other dispositions must be made to 
meet the enemy in the event that Sickles is overpowered. 
With this corps out of the way, the enemy would be in a 
position to advance upon the line of the Second Corps, not in 
a line parallel with its front, but they would come obliquely 
from the left. To meet this contingency the left of the Second 
Division of the Second Corps is thrown back slightly, and two 
regiments, the Fifteenth Massachusetts — Colonel Ward — and 
the Eighty-second New York — Lieutenant-Colonel Horton — 
are advanced down to the Emmettsburg road, to a favorable 
position nearer us than the fight has yet come, and some new 
batteries from the artillery reserve are posted upon the crest 
near the left of the Second Corps. This was all General 
Gibbon could do. Other dispositions were made, or were now 
being made, upon the field, which I shall mention presently. 
The enemy is still giving Sickles fierce battle, or rather the 
Third Corps, for Sickles has been borne from the field minus 
one of his legs, and General Birney now commands, and we of 
the Second Corps, a thousand yards away, with our guns, are, 
and must be, idle spectators of the fight. The rebel, as antic- 
ipated, tries to gain the left of the Third Corps, and for this 
purpose is now moving into the woods at the west of Eound 
Top. We knew what he would find there. No sooner had 
the enemy gotten a considerable force into the woods men- 
tioned, in the attempted execution of his purpose, than the 



1^5 

roar of the conflict was heard there also. The Fifth Corps 
and the First Division of the Second were there at the right 
time and promptly engaged him; and then, too, the battle 
soon became general and obstinate. Now the roar of battle 
has become twice the volume that it was before, and its rage 
extends over more than twice the space. The Third Corps 
has been pressed back considerably, and the wounded are 
streaming to the rear by hundreds, but still the battle there 
goes on, with no considerable abatement on our part. The 
field of actual conflict was now from a point to the front of 
the left of the Second Corps, away down to the front of Round 
Top, and the fight rages with the greatest fury. The fire of 
artillery and infantry and the yells of the rebels fill the 
air with a mixture of hideous sounds. 

When the first division of the Second Corps first engaged 
the enemy, for a time it was pressed back somewhat, but 
under the able and judicious management of General Caldwell 
and the support of the Fifth Corps, it speedily ceased to retro- 
grade and stood its ground; and then there followed a time 
after the Fifth Corps became well engaged, when, from ap- 
pearances we hoped the troops already engaged would be able 
to check entirely, or repulse the further assault of the enemy. 
But fresh bodies of the rebels continued to advance out of the 
woods to the front of the position of the Third Corps, and to 
swell the numbers of the assailants of this already hard pressed 
command. The men there begin to show signs of exhaustion, 
their ammunition must be nearly expended; they have now 
been fighting more than on hour and against greatly superior 
numbers. From the sound of the fighting at the extreme left 
and the pJlace where the smoke rises above the tree-tops there, 
we know that the Fifth Corps is still steady, and holding its own 
there, and as we see the Sixth Corps now marching and near 
at hand to that point, we have no fears for the left; we have 
more apparent reason to fear for ourselves. The Third Corps 
is being overpowered; here and there its lines begin to break; 
the men begin to pour back to the rear in confusion; the 
enemy are close upon them and among them; organization is 
lost to a great degree; guns and caissons are abandoned and 



26 

in the hands of the enemy; the Third Corps, after a heroic, 
but unfortunate fight, is being literally swept from the field. 
That corps gone, what is there between the Second Corps and 
those yelling masses of the enemy? Do you not think that 
by this time we began to feel a personal interest in this fight? 
We did indeed. We had been mere observers of all this, 
the time was at hand when we must be actors in this 
drama. 

Up to this hour General Gibbon had been in command of 
the Second Corps, since yesterday, but General Hancock, re- 
lieved of his duties elsewhere, now assumed command. Five 
or six hundred yards away the Third Corps w^as making its 
last opposition and the enemy was hotly pressing his advan- 
tage there, and throwing his fresh troops whose line extended 
still more along our front, wiien Generals Hancock and Gibbon 
rode along the lines of their troops; and at once cheer after 
cheer, not rebel mongrel cries, but genuine cheers, rang out 
along the line, above the roar of battle, for ' ' Hancock ' ' and 
" Gibbon " and " our Generals." These were good. Had you 
heard their voices, you would have known these men would 
fight. Just at this time we saw another thing that made us 
glad; we looked to our rear, and there, and all up the hillside, 
which was the rear of the Third Corps before it went forward, 
were rapidly advancing large bodies of men from the extreme 
right of our line of battle, coming to the support of the part 
now so hotly pressed. There was the whole Twelfth Corps, 
with the exception of about one brigade, that is, the larger 
portions of the divisions of Generals Williams and Geary, the 
Third Division of the First Corps, General Doubleday, and 
some other brigades of the same corps, and some of them were 
moving at the double quick. They formed lines of battle at 
the foot of the hill by the Taney town road, and when the 
broken fragments of the Third Corps were swarming by them 
towards the rear, without haltering or wavering they came 
swiftly up, and with glorious old cheers, under fire, took their 
places on the crest in line of battle to the left of the Second 
Corps. Now Sickles' blunder is repaired. Now, rebel chief, 
hurl forward your howling lines and columns! Yell out your 



27 

loudest and your last, for many of your host will never yell, 
or wave the spurious flag again! 

The battle still rages all along the left, where the Fifth Corps 
is, and the west slope of Round Top is the scene of the con- 
flict; and nearer us there was but short abatement as the last 
of the Third Corps retired from the field, for the enemy is 
flushed with his success: he has been throwing forward 
brigade after brigade and division after division since the 
battle began, and his advancing line now extends almost as 
far to the right as the right of the Second Division of the 
Second Corps. The whole slope in our front is full of them, 
and in various formation, in line, in column and in masses 
which were neither, with yells and thick volleys, they are rush- 
ing towards our crest. The Third Corps is out of the way. 
Now we are in for it. The battery men are ready by their 
loaded pieces. All along the crest is ready. Now Arnold and 
Brown, now Cushing and Woodruff and Rorty! You three 
shall survive today! They drew the cords that move the fric- 
tion primers, and gun after gun, along the batteries, in rapid 
succession, leaped where it stood, and bellowed its canister 
upon the enemy. The enemy still advance. The infantry 
open fire: first, the two advance regiments, the Fifteenth 
Massachusetts and the Eighty-second New York, then here 
and there throughout the length of the long line at the points 
where the enemy comes nearest, and soon the whole crest, 
artillery and infantry, is one continued sheet of fire. From 
Round Top to near the Cemetery stretches an uninterrupted 
field of conflict. Tiiere is a great army upon each side, now 
hotly engaged. 

To see the fight while it went on in the valley below us, 
was terrible, what must it be now when we are in it and it 
is all around us in all its fury? All senses for the time are 
dead, but the one of sight. The roar of the discharges and the 
yells of the enemy all pass unheeded; but the impassioned 
soul is all eyes and sees all things that the smoke does not 
hide. How madly the battery men are driving the double 
charges of canister in those broad-mouthed Napoleons, whose 
fire seems almost to reach the enemy. How rapidly those 



28 

long, blue-coated lines of infantry deliver their file fire down 
the slope! But there is no faltering, — ^ the men stand nobly 
to their work. Men are dropping, dead or wounded, on all 
sides, by scores and by hundreds; and the poor mutilated 
creatures, some with an arm dangling, some w^ith a leg broken 
by a bullet, are limping and crawling towards the rear. They 
make no sound of complaint or pain, but are as silent as if 
dumb and mute. A sublime heroism seems to pervade all, 
and the intuition that to lose that crest, all is lost. How our 
officers in the work of cheering on and directing the men are 
falling! We have heard that General Zook and Colonel Cross 
in the First Division of our Corps are mortally wounded, — 
they both commanded brigades, ^ — now near us Colonel Ward 
of the Fifteenth Massachusetts, — he lost a leg at Ball's Bluff, 
and Lieutenant-Colonel Horton of the Eighty-second New 
York, are mortally struck while trying to hold their com- 
mand, which are being forced back; Colonel Revere, Twenti- 
eth Massachusetts, grandson of old Paul Revere of the Revo- 
lution, is killed, Lieutenant-Colonel Max Thoman, conmiand- 
ing Fifty-ninth New York, is mortally wounded, and a host 
of others that I cannot name. These were of Gibbon's divi- 
sion. Lieutenant Brown is wounded among his guns, — his 
position is a hundred yards in advance of the main line, — the 
enemy is upon his battery, and he escapes, but leaves three of 
his six guns in the hands of the enemy. 

The lire all along our crest is terrific, and it is a wonder 
how anything human could have stood before it ; and yet the 
madness of the enemy drove them on, clear up to the muzzles 
of the guns; clear up to the lines of our Infantry, — but the 
line stood right in their places. General Hancock with his 
aides rode up to Gibbon's division, under the smoke. General 
Gibbon, with myself, was near, and there was a flag dimly 
visible, coming towards us from the direction of the enemy. 
" Here, what are these men falling back for? " said Hancock. 
The flag was no more than fifty yards away, but it w^as the 
head of a rebel column, which at once opened fire with a 
volley. Lieutenant Miller, General Hancock's aide, fell, twice 
struck, but the general was unharmed, and he told the First 



29 

Miunesota, which was near, to drive these people away. That 
splendid regiment, the less than three hundred that are left 
out of fifteen hundred that it has had, swings around upon 
the enemy, gives them a volley in their faces, and advances 
upon them Avith the bayonet. The rebels fled in confusion ; 
but Colonel Colville, Lieutenant-Colonel Adams, and Major 
Downie are all badly, dangerously wounded, and many of the 
other officers and men will never fight again. More than two- 
thirds fell. 

Such fighting as this cannot last long ; it is now near sun- 
down, and the battle has gone on wonderfully long already. 
But if we will stop to notice it, a change has occurred. The 
rebel cry has ceased, and the men of the Union begin to shout 
there, under the smoke, and their lines to advance. See, the 
rebels are breaking! They are in confusion in all our front! 
The wave has rolled upon the rock, and the rock has smashed 
it. Let us shout tool 

First upon their extreme left the rebels broke, when they 
had almost pierced our lines ; thence the repulse extended 
rapidly to their right ; tliey hung longest about Round Top, 
where the Fifth Corps punished them ; but in a space of time 
incredibly short, after they first gave signs of weakness, the 
whole force of the rebel assault, along the whole line, in spite 
of waving red flags, and yells, and the entreaties of officers, 
and the pride of the chivalry, fled like chaff before the whirl- 
wind, back down the slope, over the valley, across the Em- 
mettsburg road, shattered, without organization, in utter con- 
fusion, fugitive into the woods, and victory was w4th the arms 
of the Republic. The great rebel assault, the greatest ever 
made upon this continent, has been made and signally 
repulsed, and upon this part of the field the fight of to-day is 
now soon over. Pursuit was made as rapidly and as far as 
was practicable ; but owing to the proximity of night, and 
the long distance which would have to be gone over before 
any of the enemy, where they would be likely to halt, could 
be overtaken, further success was not attainable to-day. 
When the rebel rout first commenced, a large number of 
prisoners, some thousands at least, were captured ; almost all 



30 

their dead, and such of their wounded as could not themselves 
get to the rear, were within our lines ; several of their flags 
were gathered up, and a good many thousand muskets, some 
nine or ten guns and some caissons lost by the Third Corps, 
and the three of Brown's battery — these last were in rebel 
hands but a few minutes — were all safe now with us, the 
enemy having had no time to take them off. 

Not less, I estimate, than twenty thousand men were killed 
or wounded in this fight. Our own loss must have been nearly 
half this number, — about five thousand in the Third Corps, 
fully two thousand in the Second, and I think two thousand 
in the Fifth ; and I think the losses of the First, Twelfth, and 
the little more than a brigade of the Sixth, — all of that corps 
which was actually engaged, — would reach nearly two thou- 
sand more. Of course it will never be possible to know the 
numbers upon either side who fell in this particular part of 
the general battle, but from the position of the enemy, and 
his numbers, and the appearance of the field, his loss must 
have been as heavy as, I think much heavier, than our own ; 
and my estimates are probably short of the actual loss. 

The fight done, the sudden revulsions of sense and feeling 
follow, which more or less characterize all similar occasions. 
How strange the stillness seems! The whole air roared with 
the conflict but a moment since, — now all is silent ; not a 
gun-shot sound is heard, and the silence comes distinctly, 
almost painfully, to the senses. And the sun purples the 
clouds in the w est, and the sultry evening steals on as if there 
had been no battle, and the furious shout and the cannon's 
roar had never shook the earth. And how look those fields — 
we may see them before dark — the ripening grain, the luxu- 
riant corn, the orchards, the grassy meadows, and in their 
midst the rural cottage of brick or wood? They were beauti- 
ful this morning. They are desolate now, — trampled by the 
countless feet of the combatants, plowed and scarred by the 
shot and shell, the orchards splintered, the fences prostrate, 
the harvests trodden in the mud. And more dreadful than 
the sight of all this, thickly strewn over all their ^length and 
breadth, are the habilaments of the soldier, — the knapsacks, 



31 

cast aside in the stress of the fight, or after the fatal lead has 
struck ; haversacks, yawning with the rations the owner will 
never call for ; canteens of cedar of the rebel men of Jackson, 
and of cloth-covered tin. of the men of the Union ; blankets 
and trousers, overcoats and caps, and some are blue and some 
are gray ; muskets and ramrods, and bayonets and swords, and 
scabbards and belts, some bent and cut by shot and shell ; 
broken wheels, exploded caissons, and hmber boxes, and dis- 
mantled guns ; and all these were sprinkled with blood ; 
horses, some dead, a mangled heap of carnage, some alive with 
a leg shot clean off, or other frightful wound, appeahng to you 
with almost more than brute gaze as you pass ; and last, but 
not least numerous, many thousands of men. And there was 
no rebellion here now, — the men of South Carolina were quiet 
by the side of those of Massachusetts, some composed with up- 
turned faces, sleeping the last sleep, some mutilated and fright- 
ful, some wretched, fallen, bathed in blood, survivors still, and 
unwilling witnesses of the rage of Gettysburg. 

And yet with all this before them, as darkness came on, and 
the dispositions were made and the outposts thrown out for 
the night, the Army of the Potomac was quite mad with joy. 
No more light-hearted guests ever graced a banquet than were 
these men as they boiled their coffee and munched their sol- 
dier's supper to-night. Is it strange ? Otherwise they would 
not have been soldiers. And such sights as all these will con- 
tinue to be seen as long as war lasts in the world ; and when 
war is done, then is the end, and the days of the millennium 
at hand. 

The ambulances commenced their work as soon as the bat- 
tle opened. The twinkling lanterns through the night, and 
the sun of to-morrow, saw them still with the same work 
unfinished. 

I wish that I could write, that with the coming on of dark- 
ness ended the fight of to-day, but such was not the case. The 
armies have fought enough to-day, and ought to sleep to-night, 
one would think ; but not so thought the rebel. Let us see 
what he gained by his opinion. When the troops, including 
those of the Twelfth Corps, had been withdrawn from the ex- 



32 

treme right of our line, in the afternoon, to support the left, 
as I have mentioned, thereby of course weakening that part of 
the line so left, the rebel Ewell, either becoming aware of the 
fact, or because he thought he could carry our right at all 
events, late in the afternoon commenced an assault upon that 
part of^our line. His battle had been going on there simul- 
taneously with the fight on the left: He had advanced his 
men through the woods, and in front of the formidable posi- 
tion lately held by the Twelfth Corps, cautiously, and to his 
surprise, I have no doubt, found our strong defenses upon the 
extreme [right entirely abandoned. These he at once took 
possession of, and simultaneously made an attack upon our 
right flank, which was now near the summit of Gulp's Hill, 
and upon the front of that part of the line. That small por- 
tion of the Twelfth Corps which had been left there, and some 
of the Eleventh Corps, sent to their assistance, did what they 
could to check the rebels ;but could make but feeble resistance 
to the overwhelming forces of the enemy. Matters began to 
have a bad look in that part of the field ; a portion of the First 
Division of the First Corps was sent them for support, the 
Sixth Wisconsin among them, and this improved matters. 
But still, as we had but a small number of men there, all told, 
the enemy, with their great numbers, were having there too 
much prospect of success ; and it seems that probably, embold- 
ened by this, Ewell had resolved upon a night attack, upon that 
wing of the army, and was making his disposition accordingly. 
The enemy had not at sundown actually carried any part of 
our rifle pits there, save the ones abandoned ; but he was get- 
ting troops assembled upon our flank, and all together, with 
our weakness there at that time, matters did not look as we 
would like to have them. Such was then the position of 
affairs, when the fight upon our left, that I have mentioned, 
was done. Under such circumstances it is not strange that 
the Twelfth Corps, as soon as its work was done upon the left, 
was quickly ordered back to the right, to its old position. 
There it arrived in good time ; not soon enough, of course, to 
avoid the mortification of finding the enemy in the possession 
of a part of the works the men had labored so hard to con- 



33 

struct, but in ample time before dark, to put tbe meu well in 
the pits we already held, and to take up a strong defensible 
position, at right angles to and in rear of the main line, in or- 
der to resist these flanking dispositions of the enemy. The 
army was secure again. The men in the works would be 
steady against all attacks in front, as long as they knew that 
their flank was safe. Until between ten and eleven o'clock at 
night, the woods upon the right resounded with the discharge 
of musketry. Shortly after, or about dark, the enemy made 
a dash upon the right of the Eleventh Corps. They crept up 
the windings of a valley, not in a very heavy force, but, from 
the peculiar manner in which this corps does outpost duty, 
quite unperceived in the dark until they were close upon the 
main line. It is said, — I do not know it to be true, — that 
they spiked two guns of one of the Eleventh Corps' batteries, 
and that tlie battery men had to drive them oft' with their 
sabres and rammers, and that there was some feai'ful Dutch 
swearing on the occasion, — '■'■donner wetter,'' among other 
similar impious oaths, having been freely used. The enemy 
here were finally repulsed by the assistance of Colonel Carroll's 
brigade of the Third Division of the Second Corps, and the 
One Hundred and Sixth Pennsylvania, from the Second Divis- 
ion of the same corps, was, by General Howard's request, sent 
there to do outpost duty. It seems to have been a matter of 
utter madness and folly upon the part of the enemy to have 
continued their night attack as they did, upon the right. Our 
inen were securely covered by ample works, and even in most 
places a log was placed a few inches above the top of the main 
breast-work, as a protection to the heads of the men as they 
thrust out the pieces beneath it to fire. Yet in the darkness 
the enemy would rush up, clambering over rocks and among 
trees, even to the front of the works, but only to leave their 
riddled bodies thereupon the ground, or to be swiftly repulsed 
headlong into the woods again. In the darkness the enemy 
would climb trees close to the works, and endeavor to shoot our 
men by the light of the flashes. When discovered a thousand 
bullets would whistle after them in the dark, and some w^ould 
hit, and then the rebel Avould make up his mind co come down- 



34 

Our loss was light, almost nothing, in this fight. The next 
morning the enemy's dead were thick all along this part of 
the line. Near eleven o'clock the enemy, wearied with his 
disastrous work, desisted; and thereafter until morning not a 
shot was heard in all the armies. 

So much for the battle. There is another thing that I 
wish to mention, of the matters of the 2d of July. After 
evening came on, and from reports received, all was known 
to be going satisfactorily upon the right. General Meade 
summoned his corps commanders to his headquarters for con- 
sultation. A consultation is held upon matters of vast 
moment to the country, and that poor little farmhouse is 
honored with more distinguished guests than it ever had 
before, or than it will ever have again, probably. Do you 
expect to see a degree of ceremony and severe military aspect 
characterize this meeting, in accordance with strict military 
rules, and commensurate with the moment of the matters of 
their deliberation? Name it "Major-General Meade, com- 
mander of the Army of the Potomac, with his corps generals, 
holding a council of war upon the field of Gettysburg," and 
it would sound pretty well, — and that was what it was ; and 
you might make a picture of it and hang it up by the side of 
"Napoleon and his Marshals," and "Washington and his 
Generals," may be, at some future time. But for the artist 
to draw his picture from, I will tell how this council appeared. 
Meade, Sedgwick, Slocum, Howard, Hancock, Sykes, Newton, 
Pleasanton (commander of the cavalry) and Gibbon were the 
generals present. Hancock, now that Sickles is wounded, has 
chai'ge of the Third Corps, and Gibbon again has the Second. 
Meade is a tall, spare man, with full beard, which with his 
hair, originally brown, is quite thickly sprinkled with gray, 
has a romanish face, very large nose, and a white large fore- 
head, prominent and wide over the eyes, which are full and 
large, and quick in their movements, and he wears spectacles. 
His fibres are all of the long and sinewy kind. His habitual 
personal appearance is quite careless, and it would be rather 
difficult to make him look well dressed. Sedgwick is quite a 
heavy man, — short, thick-set, and muscular, with florid com- 



35 

plexion, dark, calm, straight-looking eyes, rather full, heavyish 
features, which, with his eyes, have plenty of animation when 
he is aroused. He has a magnificent profile, well cut, with 
the nose and forehead forming almost a straight line, curly, 
short chestnut hair and full beard, cut short, with a little gray 
in it. He dresses carelessly, but can look magnificently when 
he is well dressed. Like Meade, he looks and is honest and 
modest. You might see at once why his men, because they 
love him, call him "Uncle John," — not to his face, of course, 
but among themselves. Slocum is small, rather spare, with 
black, straight hair and beard, which latter is unshaven and 
thin: large, full, quick, black eyes, white skin, sharp nose, 
wide cheek bones and hollow cheeks, and small chin. His 
movements are quick and angular, and he dresses with a 
sufficient degree of elegance. Howard is medium in size, has 
nothing marked about him, is the youngest of them all, I 
think; has lost an arm in the war, has straight brown hair 
and beard, shaves his short upper lip, over which his nose 
slants down, dim blue eyes, and on the whole appears a very 
pleasant, affable, well-dressed gentleman. Hancock is the 
tallest and most shapely, and in many respects is the best 
looking officer . of them all. His hair is very light brown, 
straight and moist, and always looks well; his beard is of the 
same color, of which he wears the moustache and a tuft upon 
the chin; cemplexion ruddy, features neither large nor small, 
but well cut, with full jaw and chin, compressed mouth, 
straight nose, full, deep blue eyes, and a very mobile, emotional 
countenance. He always dresses remarkably well, and his 
manner is dignified, gentlemanly, and commanding. I think 
if he were in citizens' clothes and should give commands 
in the army to those who did not know him, he would be 
likely to be obeyed at once, and without any question as to 
his right to command. Sykes is a small, rather thin man, 
well dressed and gentlemanly, brown hair and beard which he 
wears full, with a red, pinched, rough-looking skin, feeble 
blue eyes, large nose, with the general air of one who is weary 
and a little ill-natured. Newton is a well-sized, shapely, mus- 
cular, well-dressed man, with brown hair, with a very ruddy. 



36 

clean-shaved, full face, blue eyes, blunt, round features, walks 
very erect, curbs in his chin, and has somewhat of that smart 
sort of swagger, that people are apt to suppose cliaracterizee 
soldiers. Pleasanton is quite a nice looking dandy, with 
brown hair and beard, — a straw hat with a little jockey rim, 
which he cocks upon one side of his head with an unsteady 
eye that looks slyly at you, and then dodges. Gibbon, the 
youngest of them all, save Howard, is about the same size as 
Slocum, Howard, Sykes, and Pleasanton, and there are none 
of these who will weigh one hundred and fifty pounds. He is 
compactly made, neither spare nor corpulent, with ruddy 
complexion, chestnut brown hair, with a clean-shaved face, 
except his moustache, which is decidedly reddish in color, — 
medium sized, well-shaped head, sharp, moderately jutting 
brows, deep blue, calm eyes, sharp, slightly aquiline nose, 
compressed mouth, full jaws and chin, with an air of calm 
firmness in his manner. He always looks well dressed, I 
suppose Howard about thirty-five, and Meade about forty-five 
years of age; the rest are between these ages, but not many 
are under forty. As they come to the council now there is 
the appearance of fatigue about them, which is not customary, 
but is only due to the hard labors of the past few days. They 
all wear clothes of dark blue, some have top boots and some 
not, and except the two-starred strap upon the shoulders of 
all save Gibbon, who has hut one star, there was scarcely a 
piece of regulation uniform about them all. They wore their 
swords, of various patterns, but no sashes, — the army hat, 
but with the crown pinched into all sorts of shapes, and the 
rim slouched down and shorn of all its ornaments but the gilt 
band, — except Sykes, who wore a blue cap, and Pleasanton 
with his straw hat, with broad black band. Then the mean 
little room where they met, — its only furniture consisted of a 
large, wide bed in one corner, a small pine table in the centre, 
upon which was a wooden pail of water, with a tin cup for 
drinking, and a candle, stuck to the table by putting the end 
in tallow melted down from the wick; and five or six straight- 
backed, rush-bottomed chairs. The generals came in ; some 
sat, some kept walking or standing, two lounged upon the 



37 

bed, some were constantly smoking cigars. And thus dis- 
posed, they deliberated, whether the army should fall back 
from its present position to one in rear which it was said was 
stronger ; should attack the enemy on the morrow, wherever 
he could be found ; or should stand there upon the horseshoe 
crest, still on the defensive, and await the further movements 
of the enemy. The latter proposition was unanimously agreed 
to. Their heads were sound. The Ai-my of the Potomac 
would just halt right there, and allow the rebel to come up 
and smash his head against it, to any reasonable extent he de- 
sired, — as he had to-day. After some two hours this council 
dissolved, and the ofificers went their several ways. 

Night, sultry and starless, droned on ; and it was almost 
midnight that I found myself peering my way from the line of 
the Second Corps, back down to the general headquarters, 
which were an ambulance in the rear, in a little peach orchard. 
All was silent now but the sound of the ambulances as they 
were bringing off the wounded ; and you could hear them rat- 
tle here and there about the field, and see their lanterns. I 
am weary and sleepy, almost to such an extent as not to be 
able to sit my horse. And my horse can hardly move, — the 
spur will not start him. What can be the reason? I know 
that he has been touched by two of their bullets to-day, but 
not to wound or lame him to speak of. Then, in riding by a 
horse that is hitched, I get kicked. Had I not a very thick 
boot, the blow would have been likely to have broken my 
ankle ; it did break my temper as it was, and, as if it would 
cure matters, I foolishly spurred my horse again. No use, — 
he would only walk. I dismounted ; I could not lead him along 
at all, so, out of temper, I rode at the slowest possible walk to 
headquarters, which I reached at last. Generals Hancock and 
Gibbon were asleep in the ambulance. With a light I found 
what was the matter with "Billy." A bullet had entered his 
chest just in front of my left leg as I was mounted, and the 
blood was running down all his side and leg, and the air from 
his lungs came out of the bullet-hole. I begged his pardon 
mentally for my cruelty in spurring him, and should have done 
so in words if he could have understood me. Kind treatment 



38 

as is due to the wounded he could understand, and he had it. 
Poor Billy! He and I were first under fire together, and I 
rode him at the Second Bull Run, and the First and Second 
Fredericksburg, and at Antietam after brave "Joe" was killed; 
but I shall never mount him again. Billy's battles are over. 

"George, make my bed here upon the ground, by the side of 
this ambulance. Pull off my sabre and my boots, — that will 
do!" Was ever princely couch, or softest down, so soft as 
those rough blankets, there upon the unroofed sod? At mid- 
night they received me for four hours' delicious, dreamless ob- 
livion of weariness and of battle. So, to me, ended the 2d of 
July. 

At four o'clock on the morning of the 3d I was awakened by 
General Gibbon pulling me by the foot, and saying, "Come, 
don't you hear that ?" I sprang to my feet. Where was I ? 
A moment and my dead senses and memory were alive again, 
and the sound of brisk firing of musketry to the front and 
right of the Second Corps, and over at the extreme right of 
our line, where we heard it last in the night, brought all back 
to my memory. We surely were on the field of battle ; and 
there were palpable evidences to my senses that to-day was to 
be another of blood. Oh, for a moment the thought of it was 
sickening to every sense and feeling! But the motion of my 
horse as I galloped over the crest a few minutes later, and the 
serene splendors of the morning now breaking through the 
rifted clouds and spreading over all the landscape soon reas- 
sured me. Come, day of battle! Up, rebel hosts, and thunder 
with your arms! we are all ready to do and to die for the 
Republic! 

I found a sharp skirmish going on in front of the right of 
the Second Corps, between our outposts and those of the 
enemy ; but save this — and none of the enemy but his out- 
posts were in sight — all was quiet in all that part of the field. 
On the extreme right of the line the sound of musketry was 
quite heavy ; and this I learned was brought on by the attack 
of the Second Division of the Twelfth Corps — General Geary 
— upon the enemy in order to drive him out of our works 
which he had sneaked into yesterday, as I have mentioned. 



39 

The attack was made at the earliest moment of the morning 
when it was light enough to discern objects to fire at. The 
enemy could not use the works, but were confronting Geary 
in woods, and had the cover of many rocks and trees ; so the 
fight was an irregular one, now breaking out and swelling to 
a vigorous fight, now subsiding to a few scattering shots ; and 
so it continued by turns until the morning was well advanced, 
when the enemy was finally wholly repulsed and driven from 
the pits, and the right of our line was again re-established in 
the place it first occupied. The heaviest losses the Twelfth 
Corps sustained in all the battle occurred during this attack ; 
and they were here quite severe. I heard Greneral Meade ex- 
press dissatisfaction at General Geary for making this attack, 
as a thing not ordered and not necessary, as the works of ours 
were of no intrinsic importance, and had not been captured 
from us by a fight, and Geary's position was just as good 
where he was during the night. And I heard General Meade 
say that he sent an order to have the fight stopped ; but I be- 
lieve the order was not communicated to Geary until after the 
repulse of the enemy. Later in the forenoon the enemy again 
tried to carry our right by storm. We heard that old rebel 
Ewell had sworn an oath that he would break our right. He 
had Stonewall Jackson's corps, and possibly imagined himself 
another Stonewall ; but he certainly hankered after the right of 
our line, and so up through the woods, and over the rocks, and 
up the steeps, he sent his storming parties. Our men could 
see them now in the daytime. But all the rebel's efforts were 
fruitless, save in one thing — slaughter to his own men. These 
assaults were made with spirit and determination, but as the 
enemy would come up, our men, lying behind their secure de- 
fences, would just singe them with a blaze of their muskets, 
and riddle them, as a hail-storm the tender blades of corn. The 
rebel oath was not kept any more than his former one to sup- 
port the Constitution of the United States. The rebel loss was 
very heavy indeed, here, ours but trifling. I regret that I can 
not give more of the details of this fighting upon the right ; it 
was so determined upon the part of the enemy, both last night 
and this morning, — so successful to us. About all that I act- 



40 

ually saw of it during its progress was the smoke, and I heard 
the discharges. My information is derived from officers who 
were personally in it. Some of our heavier artillery assisted 
our infantry in this by firing, with the pieces elevated, far 
from the rear, over the heads of oui' men, at a distance from 
the enemy of two miles, I suppose. Of course they could have 
done no great damage. It was nearly eleven o'clock that the 
battle in this part of the field subsided, not to be again re- 
newed. All the morning we felt no apprehension for this part 
of the line ; for we knew its strength, and that our troops en- 
gaged, the Twelfth Corps and the First Division, Wads- 
worth's, of the First, could be trusted. 

For the sake of telling one thing at a time I have antici- 
pated events somewhat, in writing of this fight upon the 
right. I shall now go back to the starting point, — four 
o'clock this morning, and, as other events occurred during the 
day second to none in the battle in importance, which I think 
I saw as much of as any man living, I will tell you something 
of them, and what I saw, and how the time moved on. The 
outpost skirmish that I have mentioned soon subsided. I sup- 
pose it was the natural escape of the wrath which the men 
had during the night hoarded up against each other, and 
which, as soon as they could see in the morning, they could 
no longer contain, but must let it off through their musket 
barrels at their adversaries. At the commencement of the 
war such firing would have awakened the whole army, and 
roused it to its feet and to arms; not so now. The men upon 
the crest lay snoring in their blankets, even though some of 
the enemy's bullets dropped among them, as if bullets were 
harmless as the drops of dew around them. As the sun arose 
to-day the clouds became broken, and we had once more 
glimpses of sky and fits of sunshine — a rarity — to cheer us. 
From the crest, save to the right of the Second Corps, no 
enemy, not even his outposts, could be discovered along all 
the position where he so thronged upon the Third Corps yester- 
day. All was silent there. The wounded horses were limp- 
ing about the fields; the ravages of the conflict were still per- 
fectly visible, — the scattered arms and the ground thickly 



41 

•dotted with the dead,— but no hostile foe. The men were 
roused early, in order that their morning meal might be out 
of the way in time for whatever should occur. Then ensued 
the hum of an army, not in ranks, chatting in low tones, and 
running about and jostling among each other, rolling and 
packing their blankets and tents. They looked like an army 
of rag-gatherers while shaking these very useful articles of the 
soldier's outfit, for you must know that rain and mud in con- 
junction have not had the effect to make them very clean, and 
the wear and tear of service have not left them entirely whole. 
But one could not have told by the appearance of the men that 
they were in battle yesterday and w^ere likely to be again 
to-day. They packed their knapsacks, boiled their coft'ee, and 
munched their hard bread, just as usual, — just like old 
soldiers, who know what campaigning is; and their talk is 
far more concerning their present employment — some joke or 
drollery — than concerning what they saw or did yesterday. 

As early as practicable the lines all along the left are revised 
and reformed, this having been rendered necessary by yester- 
day's battle, and also by what is anticipated to-day. It is the 
opinion of many of our generals that the rebel will not give us 
battle to-day, that he had enough yesterday ; that he will be 
heading towards the Potomac at the earliest practicable 
moment, if he has not already done so. But the better and 
controlling judgment is, that he will make another grand 
effort to pierce or turn our lines; that he will either mass and 
attack the left again, as yesterday, or direct his operations 
against the left of our ceiitre, the position of the Second Corps, 
and try to sever our line. I infer that General Meade was of 
the opinion that the attack to-day would be upon the left, — 
this from the disposition he had ordered. I know that Gen- 
eral Hancock anticipated the attack upon the centre. 

The dispositions to-day upon the left are as follows: The 
Second and Third Divisions of the Second Corps are in the 
positions of yesterday; then on the left came Doubleday's — 
the Third Division and Colonel Stannard's Brigade of the 
First Corps; then Caldwell's, — the First Division of the Second 
Corps; then the Third Corps, temporarily under the command 



4:2 

of Hancock, since Sickles' wound. The Third Corps is upon 
the same ground in part, and on the identical line where it 
first formed yesterday morning, and where, had it stayed in- 
stead of moving out to the front, we should have many more 
men to-day, and should not have been upon the brink of 
destruction yesterday. On the left of the Third is the Fifth 
Corps, with a short front and deep line; then comes the Sixth 
Corps, all but one brigade, which is sent over to the Twelfth. 
The Sixth, a splendid Corps, almost intact in the fight of 
yesterday, is the extreme left of our Ime, which terminates to 
the south of Round Top, and runs along its western base, in 
the woods, and thence to the Cemetery. This corps is burn- 
ing to pay ofi: scores made on the fourth of May, then back of 
Fredericksburg. Note well the position of the Second and 
Third Divisions of the Second Corps, — it will become im- 
portant. There are nearly six thousand men and ofiicers in 
these two divisions here upon the field. The losses were quite 
heavy yesterday, — some regiments are detached to other parts 
of the field, — so all told there are less than six thousand men 
now in the two divisions, who occupy a line of about a thou- 
sand yards. The most of the way along this line upon the 
crest was a stone fence, constructed from small rough stones, 
a good deal of the way badly fallen down; but the men had 
improved it and patched it with rails from the neighboring 
fences, and with earth, so as to render it in many places a 
very passable breastwork against musketry and flying frag- 
ments of shell. These works are so low as to compel the men 
to kneel or lie down generally to obtain cover. Near the right 
of the Second Division, and just by the little group of trees 
that I have mentioned there, this stone fence made a right 
angle, and extended thence to the front, about twenty or 
thirty yards, where with another less than a right angle it 

followed along the crest again. (Thus 1 ) The lines 

were conformed to these breastworks and to the nature of 
the ground upon the crest, so as to occupy the most favorable 
places, — to be covered, and still be able to deliver effective 
fire upon the enemy should he come there. In some places a 
second line was so posted as to be able to deliver its fire over 



43 

the heads of the first line behind the works; but such forma- 
tion was not practicable all of the way. But all the force of 
these two divisions was in line, in position, without reserves, 
and in such a manner that every man of them could have fired 
his piece at the same instant. The division flags — that of 
the Second Division being a white trefoil upon a square blue 
field, and of the Third Division a blue trefoil upon a white 
rectangular field — waved behind the divisions at the points 
where the generals of divisions were supposed to be; the 
brigade flags, similar to these but with a triangular fleld, were 
behind the brigades; and the national flags of the regiments 
were in the lines of the regiments. To the left of the Second 
Division, and advanced something over a hundred yards, were 
posted a part of Stannard's brigade, two regiments or more, 
behind a small bush-crowned crest that ran in a direction 
oblique to the general line. These were well covered by the 
crest, and wholly concealed by the bushes, so that an advanc- 
ing enemy would be close upon them before they could be 
seen. Other troops of Doubleday's division were strongly 
posted in rear of these in the general line. 

I could not help wishing all the morning that this line of 
the divisions of the Second Corps were stronger ; it was, so far 
as numbers constitute strength, the weakest part of our whole 
line of battle. What if, I thought, the enemy should make 
an assault here today, with two or three heavy lines, — a great 
overwhelming mass, — would he not sweep through that thin 
six thousand? But I was not General Meade, who alone had 
power to send other troops there ; and he was satisfied with 
that part of the line as it was. He was early on horseback 
this morning, and rode along the whole line, looking to it him- 
self, and with glass in hand sweeping the woods and fields in 
the direction of "the enemy, to see if aught of him could be 
discovered. His manner was calm and serious, but earnest. 
There was no arrogance of hope, or timidity of fear, discerni- 
ble in his face; but you would have supposed he would do 
his duty conscientiously and well, and would be willing to 
abide the result. You would have seen this in his face. He 
was well pleased with the left of the line today; it was so 



44 

strong with good troops. He bad no apprehension for the 
right where the fight was now going on, on account of the 
admirable position of our forces there. He was not of the 
opinion that the enemy would attack the centre, our artillery 
had such sweep there, and this was not a favorite point of 
attack with the rebel; besides, should he attack the centre, 
the general thought he could reinforce it in good season. I 
heard (General Meade speak of these matters to Hancock and 
some others, at about nine o'clock in the morning, while they 
were up by the line, near the Second Corps. 

No further changes of importance, except those mentioned, 
w^ere made in the disposition of the troops this morning, 
except to replace some of the batteries that were disabled 
yesterday by others from the artillery reserve, and to brace 
up the lines well with guns, wherever there were eligible 
places, from the same source. The line is all in good order 
again, and we are ready for general battle. 

Save the operations upon the right, the enemy, so far as we 
could see, was very quiet all the morning. Occasionally the 
outposts would fire a little, and then cease. Movements 
would be discovered which would indicate the attempt on the 
part of the enemy to post a battery ; our Parrotts would send 
a few shells to the spot, then silence would follow. At one of 
these times a painful accident happened to us, this morning. 
First Lieutenant Henry Ropes, Twentieth Massachusetts, in 
General Gibbon's division, a most estimable gentleman and 
officer, intelligent, educated, refined, one of the noble souls 
that came to the country's defence, while lying at his post 
with his regiment, in front of one of the batteries, which fired 
over the infantry, was instantly killed by a badly made shell 
which, or some portion of it, fell but a few yards in front of 
the muzzle of the gun. The same accident killed or wounded 
several others. The loss of Ropes would have pained us at 
any time, and in any manner ; in this manner his death w^as 
doubly painful. 

Between ten and eleven o'clock, over in a peach orchard in 
front of the position of Sickles yesterday, some little show of 
the enemy's infantry was discovered. A few shells scattered 



45 

the gray-backs ; they again appeared, and it becoming appar- 
•ent that they were only posting a skirmish hne, no farther 
molestation was offered them. A little after this some of the 
enemy's flags could be discerned over near the same quarter, 
above the top, and behind a small crest of a ridge. There 
seemed to be two or three of them — possibly they were 
guidons, — and they moved too fast to be carried on foot. 
Possibly, we thought, the enemy is posting some batteries 
there. We knew in about two hours from this time better 
about the matter. Eleven o'clock came. The noise of battle 
has ceased upon the right ; not a sound of a gun or musket 
can be heard on all the field. The sk}^ is bright with only the 
white fleecy clouds floating over from the west ; the July sun 
streams down its fire upon the bright iron of the muskets in 
stacks upon the crest, and the dazzling brass of the Napoleons. 
The army lolls and longs for the shade, of which some get a 
hand's breadth from a shelter tent stuck upon a ramrod. The 
silence and sultriness of a July noon are supreme. 

Now it so happened that just about this time of day a very 
original and interesting thought occurred to General Gibbon 
and several of his staff ; that it would be a very good thing, 
and a very good time, to have something to eat. When I 
announce to you that I had not tasted a mouthful of food 
since yesterday noon, and that all I had had to drink since that 
time, but the most miserable, muddy, warm water, was a 
little drink of whiskey that Major Biddle, General Meade's 
aide-de-camp, gave me last evening, and a cup of strong coffee 
that I gulped down as I was first mounting this morning, and 
further, that, save the four or five hours in the night, there 
was scarcely a moment since that time but that I was in the 
saddle, you may have some notion of the reason of my assent 
to this extraordinary proposition. Nor will I mention the. 
doubts I had as to the feasibilit}^ of the execution of this very 
novel proposal, except to say that I knew this morning that 
our larder was low ; not to put too fine a point upon it, that 
we had nothing but some potatoes and sugar and coffee in the 
world. And I may as well say here, that of such, in scant 
jproportions, would have been our repast, had it not been for 



46 

the riding of miles by two persons, one an officer, to procure 
supplies; and they only succeeded in getting some few chick- 
ens, some butter, and one huge loaf of bread, which last was 
bought of a soldier, because he had grown faint in carrying it, 
and was afterwards rescued with much difficulty, after a long 
race, from a four-footed hog which had got hold of and had 
actually eaten a j)art of it. " There is a divinity, " etc. Suffice 
it, this very ingenious and unheard of contemplated proceed- 
ing, first announced by the general, was accepted, and at once 
undertaken by his staff. Of the absolute quality of what we 
had to eat, I could not pretend to judge, but I think an un- 
prejudiced person would have said of the bread, that it was 
good; so of the potatoes, before they were boiled. Of the 
chickens, he would have questioned their age, but these were 
large and in good runniyig order. The toast was good, and 
the butter, — there were those who, when coffee was given 
them, called for tea, and vice versa, and were so ungracious 
as to suggest that the water that was used in both might have 
come from near a barn. Of course it did not. We all came 
down to the little peach orchard where we had stayed last 
night, and, wonderful to see and tell, ever mindful of our 
needs, had it all ready, had our faithful John. There was an 
enormous pan of stewed chickens, and the potatoes and toast, 
all hot, and the bread and the butter, and tea and coffee. 
There was satisfaction derived from just naming them all 
over. We called John an angel, and he snickered and said he 
" knowed " we'd come. General Hancock is of course invited 
to partake, and without delay we commenced operations. 
Stools are not very numerous, — two in all, — and these the 
two generals have by common consent. Our table was the 
top of the mess chest. By this the generals sat; the rest of 
, us sat upon the ground, cross-legged like the picture of a 
smoking Turk, and held our plates upon our laps. How deli- 
cious was the stewed chicken! I had a cucumber pickle in 
my saddle-bags, the last of a lunch left there two or three 
days ago, which George brought, and I had half of it. We 
were just well at it, when General Meade rode down to us 
from the line, accompanied by his staff, and by General Gib- 



47 

bon's invitation they dismounted and joined us. For the gen- 
eral commanding the Army of the Potomac, George, by an 
effort worthy of the person and the occasion, finds an empty 
cracker-box for a seat. The Staff officers must sit upon the 
ground with the rest of us. Soon Generals Newton and 
Pleasanton, each with an aide, arrive. By an almost super- 
human effort a roll of blankets is found, which, upon a pinch, 
is long enough to seat these generals both, and room is made 
for them. The aides sit with us. And, fortunate to relate, 
there was enough cooked for us all, and from General Meade 
to the youngest second lieutenant we all had a most hearty 
and well-relished dinner. Of the "past" we were "secure." 
The generals ate and, after, lighted cigars, and under the 
flickering shade of a very small tree discoursed of the inci- 
dents of yesterday's battle, and of the probabilities of to-day. 
General Newton humorously spoke of General Gibbon as "this 
young North Carolinian," and how he was becoming arrogant 
and above his position because he had commanded a corps. 
General Gibbon retorted by saying that General Newton had 
not been long enough in such a command, only since yester- 
day, to enable him to judge of such things. 

General Meade still thought that the enemy would attack 
his left again to-day, towards evening; but he was ready for 
them. General Hancock, that the attack would be upon the 
position of the Second Corps. It was mentioned that General 
Hancock would again resume command of the Second Corps 
from that time, so that General Gibbon would again return to 
the Second Division. General Meade spoke of the Provost 
Guards, — that they were good men, and that it would be 
better to-day to have them in the ranks than to stop stragglers 
and skulkers, as these latter would be good for but little even 
in the ranks; and so he gave the order that all the Provost 
Guards should at once temporarily rejoin their regiments. 
Then General Gibbon called up Captain Farrell, First Minnesota, 
who commanded the Provost Guard of his division, and directed 
him for that day to join the regiment. "Very well, sir," 
said the captain, as he touched his hat and turned away. He 
was a quiet, excellent gentleman, and thorough soldier. I 



48 

knew him well, and esteemed him. I never saw him again. 
He was killed in two or three hours from that time, and over 
half of his splendid company were either killed or wounded 

And so the time passed on, each general now and then dis- 
patching some order or message by an officer or orderly, until 
about half past twelve, when all the generals, one by one, 
first General Meade, rode off their several ways ; and General 
Gibbon and his staff alone remained. We dozed in the heat, 
and lolled upon the ground, with half open eyes. Our horses 
were hitched to the trees, munching some oats. A great lull 
rests upon all the field. Time was heavy, and for want of 
something better to do, I yawned and looked at my watch; it 
was five minutes before one o'clock. I returned my watch to 
its pocket, and thought possibly that I might go to sleep, and 
stretched myself upon the ground accordingly. '■'■ Ah uno 
disce omnes.'"' My attitude and purpose were those of the 
general and the rest of the staff. 

What sound was that? There was no mistaking it! The 
distinct, sharp sound of one of the enemy's guns, square over 
to the front, caused us to open our eyes and turn them in that 
direction, when we saw directly above the crest the smoke of 
the bursting shell, and heard its noise. In an instant, before 
a word was spoken, as if that was the signal gun for general 
work, loud, startling, booming, the report of gun after gun, 
m rapid succession, smote our ears, and their shells plunged 
down and exploded all around us. We sprang to our feet. In 
briefest time the whole rebel line to the west was pouring out 
its thunder and its iron upon our devoted crest. The wildest 
confusion for a few moments obtained among us. The shells 
came bursting all about. The servants ran terror-stricken for 
dear life, and disappeared. The horses hitched to the trees, 
or held by the slack hands of orderlies, neighed out in fright, 
and broke away and plunged riderless through the fields. The 
general at the first had snatched his sword, and started on 
foot to the front, I called for my horse; nobody responded, 
I found him tied to a tree near by, eating oats, with an air of 
the greatest composure, which, under the circumstances, even 
then struck me as exceedingly ridiculous. He alone, of all 



49 

beasts or men near, was cool. I am not sure but that I 
learned a lesson then from a horse. Anxious alone for his 
oats, while I put on the bridle and adjusted the halter, he 
delayed me by keeping his head down, so I had tihie to see 
one of the horses of our mess wagon struck and torn by a 
shell. The pair plunge, — the driver has lost the rein; horses, 
driver, and wagon go into a heap by a tree. Two mules close 
at hand, packed with boxes of ammunition, are knocked all 
to pieces by a shell. 

General Gibbon's groom has just mounted his horse, and is 
starting to take the general's to him, when the flying iron 
meets him and tears open his breast; he drops dead, and the 
horses gallop away. No more than a minute since the first 
shot was fired, and I am mounted and riding after the general. 
The mighty din that now rises to heaven and shakes the earth 
is not all of it the voice of rebellion; for our guns, the guar- 
dian lions of the crest, quick to awake when danger comes, 
have opened their fiery jaws and begun to roar, — the great 
hoarse roar of battle. I overtook the general half way up to 
the line. Before we reach the crest his horse is brought by an 
orderly. Leaving our horses just behind a sharp declivity of 
the ridge, on foot we go up among the batteries. How the 
long streams of fire spout from the guns I how the rifled shells 
hiss I how the smoke deepens and rolls! But where is the in- 
fantry? Has it vanished in smoke? Is this a nightmare or a 
juggler's devilish trick? All too real. The men of the in- 
fantry have seized their arms, and behind their works, behind 
every rock, in every ditch, wherever there is any shelter, they 
hug the ground, silent, quiet, unterrified, little harmed. The 
enemy's guns, now in action, are in position at their front of 
the w^oods, along the second ridge that I have before men- 
tioned, and towards their right, behind a small crest in the 
open field, where we saw the flags this morning. Their line is 
some two miles long, concave on the side toward us, and their 
range is from one thousand to eighteen hundred yards. A 
hundred and twenty-five rebel guns, we estimate, are now 
active, firing twenty four-pound, tweuty, twelve, and ten- 
pound projectiles, solid shot and shells, spherical, conical, 



50 

spiral. The enemy's fire is chiefly concentrated upon the posi- 
tion of the Second Corps. From the Cemetery to Round Top, 
with over a hundred guns, and to all parts of the enemy's line, 
our batteries reply, of twenty and ten-pound Parrotts, ten- 
pound rifled ordnance, and twelve-pound Napoleons, using pro- 
jectiles as various in shape and name as those of the enemy. 
Captain Hazard, commanding the Artillery Brigade of the Sec- 
ond Corps, was vigilant among the batteries of his command, 
and they were all doing well. All was going on satisfactorily. 
We had nothing to do, therefore, but to be observers of the 
grand spectacle of battle. Captain AVessels, Judge Advocate 
of the division, now joined us, and we sat down just behind 
the crest, close to the left of Cushing's battery, to bide our 
time, to see, to be ready to act when the time should come, 
which might be at any moment. Who can describe such a 
conflict as is raging around us? To say that it was like a sum- 
mer storm, with the crash of thunder, the glare of lightning, 
the shrieking of the wind, and the clatter of hailstones, would 
be weak. The thunder and lightning of these two hundred 
and fifty guns, and their shells, when smoke darkens the sky, 
are incessant, all-pervading, in the air above our heads, on the 
ground at our feet, remote, near, deafening, ear-piercing, as- 
tounding; and these hailstones are massy iron charged with 
exploding fire. And there is little of human interest in a 
storm; it is an absorbing element of this. You may see flame 
and smoke, and hurrying men, and human passion, at a great 
conflagration; but they are all earthly, and nothing more. 
Those guns are great infuriate demons, not of the earth, whose 
mouths blaze with snaky tongues of living fire, and whose 
murky breath, sulphur-laden, rolls around them and along the 
ground, the smoke of Hades. These grimy men, i-ushiug, 
shouting, their souls in frenzy, plying the dusky globes and 
the igniting spark, are in their league, and but their willing 
ministers. We thought that at the second Bull Eun, at the 
Antietam, and at Fredericksburg on the 11th of December, we 
had heard heavy cannonading; they were but holiday salutes 
compared with this. Besides the gi-eat ceaseless roar of the 
guns, which was but the background of , the others, a million 



51 

various minor sounds engaged the ear. The projectiles shriek 
long and sharp. They hiss, they scream, they growl, they 
sputter, — all sounds of life and rage; and each has its different 
note, and all are discordant. Was ever such a chaos of sound 
before? We note the effect of the enemy's fire among the bat- 
teries and along the crest. We see the solid shot strike axle, 
or pole, or wheel, and the tough iron and heart of oak snap 
and fly like straws. The great oaks there by Woodruff's guns 
heave down their massy branches with a crash, as if the light- 
ning had smote them. The shells swoop down among the bat- 
tery horses, standing there apart: a half dozen horses start, 
they tremble, their legs stiffen, their vitals and blood smear 
the ground. And these shot and shells have no respect for 
men either. We see the poor fellows hobbling back from the 
crest, or unable to do so, pale and weak, lying on the ground, 
with the mangled stump of an arm or leg dripping their life- 
blood away, or with a cheek torn open or a shoulder smashed. 
And many, alas ! hear not the roar as they stretch upon the 
ground with upturned faces and open eyes, though a shell 
should burst at their very ears. We saw them but a moment 
since, there among the flame, with brawny arms and muscles 
of iron, wielding the rammer and pushing home the cannon's 
plethoric load . 

Strange freaks these round shot play ! We saw a man com- 
ing up from the rear with his full knapsack on, and some can- 
teens of water held by the straps in his hands. He was walk- 
ing slowly, and with apparent unconcern, though the iron 
hailed around him. A shot struck the knapsack, and it and 
its contents flew thirty yards in every direction; the knapsack 
disappeared like an egg thrown spitefully against the rock. 
The soldier stopped, and turned about in puzzled surprise, put 
up one hand to his back to assure himself that the knapsack 
w^as not there, and then walked slowly on again unharmed, 
with not even his coat torn. Near us was a man crouching 
behind a small disintegrated stone, which was about the size 
of a common water-bucket. He was bent up, with his face to 
the ground, in the attitude of a pagan worshipper before his 
idol. It looked so absurd to see him thus, that I went and 



52 

said to him: "Do not lie there Uke a toad, — why not go to your 
regiment and be a man'?'" He turned up his face with a stupid, 
terrified look upon me, and then without a word turned his 
nose again to the ground. An orderly that was with me at 
the time told me a few moments later, that a shot struck the 
stone, smashing it in a thousand fragments, but did not touch 
the man, though his head was not six inches from the stone. 
All the projectiles that came near us were not so harmless. 
Not ten yards away from us a shell burst among some small 
bushes, where sat three or four orderlies, holding horses. Two 
of the men and one horse were killed. Only a few yards off a 
shell exploded over an open limber box in Cushing's battery, 
and almost at the same instant another shell over a neighbor- 
ing box. In both the boxes the ammunition blew up with an 
explosion that shook the ground, throwing fire and splinters 
and shells far into the air and all around, and destroying sev- 
eral men. We watched the shells bursting in the air, as they 
came hissing in all directions. Their flash was a bright gleam 
of lightning radiating from a point, giving place in a thous- 
andth part of a second to a small, white, pufi'y cloud, like a 
fleece of the lightest, whitest wool. These clouds were very 
numerous. We could not often see the shell before it burst, 
but sometimes, as we faced towards the enemy, and looked 
above our heads, the approach would be heralded by a pro- 
longed hiss, which always seemed to me to be a line of some- 
thing tangible, terminating in a black globe, distinct to the 
eye, as the sound had been to the ear. The shell would seem 
to stop, and hang suspended in the air an instant, and then 
vanish in fire and smoke and noise. We saw the missiles tear 
and plow the ground. All in rear of the crest for a thousand 
yards, as well as among the batteries, was the field of their 
blind fury. Ambulances passing down the Taney town road 
with wounded men were struck. The hospitals near this road 
were riddled. The house which was General Meade's head- 
quarters was shot through several times, and a good many 
horses of officers and orderlies were lying dead around it. 
Riderless horses, galloping madly through the fields, were 
brought up, or down rather, by these invisible horse-tamers, 



53 

and they would not run any more. Mules with ammunition, 
pigs wallowing about, cows in the pastures, whatever was 
animate or inanimate, in all this broad range, were no excep- 
tion to their blind havoc. The percussion shells would strike 
and thunder, and scatter the earth, and their whistling frag- 
ments, the Whitworth bolts, would pound and ricochet, and 
bowl far away sputtering, with the sound of a mass of hot 
iron plunged in water : and the great solid shot would smite 
the unresisting earth with a sounding "thud," as the strong 
boxer crashes his iron fist into the jaws of his unguarded 
adversary. 

Such were some of the sights and sounds of this great iron 
battle of missiles. Our artillery men upon the crest budged 
not an inch nor intermitted; but, though caisson and limber 
were smashed, and guns dismantled, and men and horses 
killed, there, amidst smoke and sweat, they gave back with- 
out grudge or loss of time in the sending, in kind whatever 
the enemy sent, — globe and cone and bolt, hollow or solid, — 
an iron greeting to the rebellion, the compliments of the 
wrathful Republic. 

An hour has droned its flight since first the roar began. 
There is uo sign of weariness or abatement on either side. 
So long it seemed, that the din and crashing around began to 
appear the normal condition of nature there, and fighting 
man's element. The general proposed to go among the men 
and over to the front of the batteries, so at about two o'clock 
he and I started. We went along the lines of the infantry 
as they lay there flat upon the earth a little to the front of 
the batteries. They were suffering little and were quiet and 
cool. How glad we were that the enemy were no better 
gunners, and that they cut the shell fuses too long. To the 
question asked the men: "What do you think of this?" the 
re|)hes would be, "Oh, this is bully"; " We are getting to 
like it"; " Oh, we don't mind this." And so they lay under 
the heaviest cannonade that ever shook the continent, and 
among them a thousand times more jokes than heads were 
cracked. We went down in front of the line some two 
hundred yards, and, as the smoke had a tendency to settle 



54 

upon a higher plane than where we were, we could see near 
the ground distinctly all over the field, as well back to the 
crest where were our own guns as to the opposite ridge where 
were those of the enemy. No infantry was in sight save the 
skirmishers, and they stood silent and motionless, — a row of 
gray posts through the field on one side, confronted by another 
of blue. 

Under the grateful shade of some elm trees, where we could 
see much of the field, we made seats of the ground and sat 
down. Here all the more repulsive features of the fight 
were unseen by reason of the smoke. Man had arranged the 
scenes, and for a time had taken part in the great drama; 
but at last, as the plot thickened, conscious of his littleness- 
and inadequacy to the mighty part, he had stepped aside and 
given place to more powerful actors. So it seemed; for we 
could see no men about the batteries. On either crest we 
could see the great flaky streams of fire, and they seemed 
numberless, of the opposing guns, and their white banks of 
swift convolving smoke; but the sound of the discharges was 
drowned in the universal ocean of sound. Over all the valley 
the smoke, a sulphur arch, stretched its lurid space; and 
through it always, shrieking on their unseen courses, thickly 
flew a myriad of iron deaths. With our grim horizon on all 
sides round, toothed thick with battery flame, under that 
dissonant canopy of warring shells, we sat, and saw, and 
heard in silence. What other expression had we that was 
not mean, for such an awful universe of battle? 

A shell struck our breastwork of rails up in sight of us, 
and a moment afterwards we saw the men bearing some of 
their wounded companions away from the same spot ; and 
directly two men from there came down toward where we 
were, and sought to get shelter in an excavation near by, 
where many dead horses, killed in yesterday's fight, had been 
thrown. General Gibbon said to these men, more in a tone of 
kindly expostulation than of command : "My men, do not 
leave your ranks to try to get shelter here. All these matters 
are in the hands of God, and nothing that you can do will 
, make you safer in one place than another." The men went 



55 

quietly back to the line at once. The genei-al then said to me : 
"I am not a member of any church, but I have always had a 
strong religious feeling ; and so, in all these battles, I have al- 
ways believed that I was in the hands of God, and that I 
should be unharmed or not, according to his will. For this 
reason, I think it is, I am always ready to go where duty calls, 
no matter how great the danger." 

Half past two o'clock, an hour and a half since the com- 
mencement, and still the cannonade did not in the least abate; 
but soon thereafter some signs of weariness and a little slack- 
ing of fire began to be apparent upon both sides. First we 
saw Brown's battery retire from the line, too feeble for further 
battle. Its position was a little to the front of the line. Its 
commander was wounded, and many of its men were so, or 
worse; some of its guns had been disabled, many of its horses 
killed; its ammunition was nearly expended. Other batteries 
in similar case had been withdrawn before to be replaced by 
fresh ones, and some were withdrawn afterwards. Soon after 
the battery named had gone the general started to return, 
passing towards the left of the division, and crossing the 
ground where the guns had stood. The stricken horses were 
numerous, and the dead and wounded men lay about, and as 
we passed these latter, their low, piteous call for water would 
invariably come to us, if they had yet any voice left. I found 
canteens of water near — no difficult matter where a battle 
has been — and held them to livid lips; and gven in the faint- 
ness of death the eagerness to drmk told of the terrible torture 
of thirst. But we must pass on. Our infantry was still un- 
shaken, and in all the cannonade suffered very little. The 
batteries had been handled much more severely. I am unable 
to give any figures. A great number of horses have been 
killed, — in some batteries more than half of all. Guns had 
been dismounted, a great many caissons, limbers, and carriages 
had been destroyed, and usually from ten to twenty-five men 
to each battery had been struck, at least along our part of the 
crest. Altogether the fire of the enemy had injured us much, 
both in the modes that I have stated, and also by exhausting 
our ammunition and fouling our guns, so as to render our 



56 

batteries unfit for further immediate use. The scenes that 
met our eyes on all hands among the batteries were fearful. 
All things must end, and the great cannonade was no excep- 
tion to the general law of earth. In the number of guns 
active at one time, and in the duration and rapidity of their 
fire, this artillery engagement up to this -time must stand 
alone and pre-eminent in this war. It has not been often, or 
many times, surpassed in the battles of the world. Two hun- 
dred and fifty guns, at least, rapidly fired for two mortal 
hours! Cipher out the number of tons of gunpowder and iron 
that made these two hours hideous. 

Of the injury of our fire upon the enemy, except the facts 
that ours was the superior position, if not better served and 
constructed artillery, and that the enemy's artillery hereafter 
during the battle was almost silent, we knew little. Of course 
during the fight we often saw the enemy's caissons explode, 
and the trees, rent by our shot, crashing about his ears; but 
we can from them alone infer but little of general results. At 
'three o'clock, almost precisely, the last shot hummed and 
bounded and fell, and the cannonade was over. The purpose 
of General Lee in all this fire of his guns — we know it now, 
we did not at the time so well — was to disable our artillery 
and break up our infantry upon the position of the Second 
Corps, so as to render them less an impediment to the sweep 
of his own brigades and divisions over our crest and through 
our lines. He probably supposed our infantry was massed 
behind the crest and the batteries; and hence his fire was so 
high and the fuses to his shells were cut so long, too long. 
The rebel general failed in some of his plans in this behalf, as 
many generals have failed before, and will again. The 
artillery fight over, men began to breathe more freely, and to 
ask: "What next, I wonder?" The battery men were 
among their guns, some leaning to rest and wipe the sweat 
from their sooty faces; some were handling ammunition boxes 
and replenishing those that were empty. Some batteries 
from the artillery reserve were moving up to take the places 
of the disabled ones; the smoke was clearing from the crest. 
There was a pause between acts, with the curtain down, soon 



57 

to rise upon the great final act and catastrophe of Gettysburg. 
We had passed by the left of the Second Division coming 
from the front; when we crossed the crest, the enemy was 
not in sight, and all was still. We walked slowly along in 
rear of the troops, by the ridge, cut off now from a view of 
the enemy or his position, and were returning to the spot 
where we had left our horses. General Gibbon had just said 
that he inclined to the belief that the enemy was falling back, 
and that the cannonade was only one of his noisy modes of 
covering the movement. I said that I thought that fifteen 
minutes would show that, by all his bowling, the rebel did 
not mean retreat. We were near our horses when we noticed 
Brigadier-General Hunt, Chief of Artillery of the army, near 
Woodruff's battery, swiftly moving about on horseback, and 
apparently in a rapid manner giving some orders about the 
guns. Thought we, what could this mean? In a moment 
afterwards we met Captain Wessels, and the orderlies who 
had our horses; they were on foot leading the horses. Captain 
Wessels was pale, and he said, excited: "General, they say 
the enemy's infantry is advancing." We sprang into our 
saddles; a score of bounds brought us upon the all-seeing crest. 
To say that none grew pale and held their breath at what we 
and they then saw, would not be true. Might not six thou- 
sand men be brave and without shade of fear, and yet, before 
a hostile eighteen thousand, armed, and not five minutes' 
march away, turn ashy white? None on that crest need now 
be told that the enemy is advancing ! Every eye could see his 
legions, an overwhelming, resistless tide of an ocean of armed 
men, sweeping upon us ! Regiment after regiment, and 
brigade after brigade, move from the woods and rapidly take 
their places in the lines forming the assault. Pickett's proud 
division, with some additional troops, holds their right; Petti- 
grew's (Heth's) their left. The first line, at short interval, is 
followed by a second, and that a third succeeds; and columns 
between support the lines. More than half a mile their front 
extends; more than a thousand yards the dull gray masses 
deploy, man touching man, rank pressing rank, and line sup- 
porting line. Their red flags wave; their horsemen gallop up 



58 

and down ; the arms of eighteen thousand men, barrel and 
bayonet, gleam in the sun, — a sloping forest of flashing steel- 
Right on they move, as with one soul, in perfect order, with- 
out impediment of ditch or wall or stream, over ridge and 
slope, through orchard and meadow and cornfield, magnifi- 
cent, grim, irresistible. All was orderly and still upon the 
crest; no noise and no confusion. The men had little need of 
commands; for the survivors of a dozen battles knew well 
enough what this array in front portended, and, already in 
their places, they would be prepared to act when the right 
time should come. The click of the locks as each man raised 
the hammer to feel with his finger that the cap was on the 
nipple; the sharp jar as a musket touched a stone upon the 
wall when thrust, in aiming, over it; and the clinking of the 
iron axles, as the guns were rolled up by hand a little further 
to the front, were quite all the sounds that could be heard. 
Cap boxes were slid around to the front of the body; cartridge 
boxes opened; officers opened their pistol holsters. Such 
preparations little more, was needed. The trefoil flags, colors 
of the brigades and divisions, moved to their places in rear; 
but along the lines in front, the grand old ensign that first 
waved in battle at Saratoga, in 1777, and which these people 
coming would rob of half its stars, stood up, and the west 
wind kissed it as the sergeants sloped its lance towards the 
enemy, I believe that not one above whom it then waved but 
blessed his God that he was loyal to it, and whose heart did 
not swell with pride towards it, as the emblem of the Republic, 
before that treason's flouting rag in front. 

General Gibbon rode down the lines, cool and calm, and in 
an unimpassioned voice he said to the men: "Do not hurry, 
men, and fire too fast ; let them come up close before you fire, 
and then aim low and steadily," The coolness of their general 
was reflected in the faces of his men. Five minutes had 
elapsed since first the enemy had emerged from the woods, — 
no great space of time, surely, if measured by the usual stand- 
ards by which men estimate duration, — but it was long 
enough for us to note and weigh some of the elements of 
mighty moment that surrounded us : the disparity of numbers 



59 

between the assailants and the assailed ; that, few as were our 
numbers, we could not be supported or re-inforced until sup- 
port would not be needed, or would be too late , that upon the 
ability of the two trefoil divisions to hold the crest, and repel 
the assault, depended not only their own safety or destruction, 
but also the honor of the Army of the Potomac and defeat or 
victory at Gettysburg. Should these advancing men pierce 
our line, and become the entering wedge, driven home, that 
would sever our army asunder, what hope would there be 
afterwards, and where the blood-earned fruits of yesterday? 
It was long enough for the rebel storm to drift across more 
than half the space that had first separated it from us. None, 
or all, of these considerations either depressed or elevated us. 
They might have done the former, had we been timid ; the 
latter, had we been confident and vain. But we were there 
waiting and ready to do our duty ; that done, results could 
not dishonor us. 

Our skirmishers open a spattering fire along the front, and, 
fighting, retire upon the main line — the first drops, the her- 
alds of the storm, sounding upon our windows. Then the 
thunders of our guns, first Arnold's, then Cushing's and 
Woodruff's and the rest, shake and reverberate through the 
air, and their sounding shells smite the enemy. The general 
said I had better go and tell General Meade of this advance. 
To gallop to General Meade's headquarters, to learn there 
that he had changed them to another part of the field, to des- 
patch to him by the Signal Corps, in General Gibbon's name, 
the message, "The enemy is advancing his infantry in force 
upon my front, ' ' and to be again upon the crest, were but the 
work of a minute. All our available guns are now active, 
and from the fire of shells as the range grows shorter and 
shorter, they change to shrapnel, and from shrapnel to cani- 
ster ; but in spite of shells and shrapnel and canister, without 
wavering or halt, the hardy lines of the enemy continue to 
move on. The rebel guns make no reply to ours, and no 
charging shout rings out today, as is the rebel wont ; but the 
courage of these silent men amid our shot seems not to need 
the stimulus of other noise. The enemy's right flank sweeps 



60 

near Staunard's bushy crest, and his concealed Vermonters 
rake it with a well-delivered fire of musketry. The gray lines 
do not halt or reply, but withdrawing a little from that ex- 
treme they still move on. And so across all that broad, open 
ground they have come, nearer and nearer, nearly half the 
way, with our guns bellowing in their faces, until now a 
hundred yards, no more, divide our ready left from their 
advancing right. The eager men there are anxious to begin. 
Let them. First Harrow's breastworks flame, then Hall's, 
then Webb's. As if our bullets were the fire coals that 
touched off their muskets, the enemy in front halts and his 
countless level barrels V)laze back upon us. The Second Divis- 
ion is struggling in battle. The rattling storm soon spreads 
to the right, and the blue trefoils are vying with the white. 
All along each hostile front, a thousand yards, with narrowest 
space between, the volleys blaze and roll; as thick the sound 
as when a summer hailstorm pelts the city roofs ; as thick 
the fire as when the incessant lightning fringes a summer 
cloud. When the rebel infantry had opened fire our batteries 
soon became silent, and this without their fault, for they were 
foul by long previous use. They were the targets of the con- 
centrated rebel bullets, and some of them had expended all their 
canister; but they were not silent before Rorty was killed, 
Woodruff had fallen mortally wounded, and Gushing, firing 
almost his last canister, had dropped dead among his guns, 
shot through the head by a bullet. The conflict is left to the 
infantry alone. Unable to find my general when I had re- 
turned to the crest after transmitting his message to General 
Meade, and while riding in the search, having witnessed the 
development of the fight from the first fire upon the left by 
the main lines, until all of the two divisions were furiously 
engaged, I gave up hunting as useless, — I was convinced 
General Gibbon could not be on the field ; I left him mounted ; 
I could easily have found him now had he so remained, but 
now, save myself, there was not a mounted officer near the 
engaged lines, — and was riding towards the right of the Sec- 
ond Division, with purpose to stop there, as the most eligible 
position to watch the further progress of the battle, then to be 



61 

ready to take part, according to my own notions, wherever 
and whenever occasion was presented. The conflict was tre- 
mendous, but I had seen no wavering in all our line. Won- 
dering how long the rebel ranks, deep though they were, could 
stand our sheltered volleys, I had come near my destination, 
when — great heaven! were my senses mad? — the larger por- 
tion of Webb's brigade, — my God, it was true, — there by the 
group of trees and the angles of the wall, was breaking from 
the cover of the works, and without order or reason, with no 
hand uplifted to check them, was falling back, a fear-stricken 
flock of confusion! The fate of Gettysburg hung upon a spid- 
er's single thread! A great, magnificent passion came on me 
at the instant; not one that overpowers and confounds, but 
one that blanches the face and sublimes every sense and fac- 
ulty. My sword that had always hung idle by my side, the 
sign of rank only, in every battle, I drew, bright and gleam- 
ing, the symbol of command. Was not that a fit occasion and 
those fugitives the men on whom to try the temper of the Sol- 
ingen steel? All rules and proprieties were forgotten, all con- 
siderations of person and danger and safety despised; for, as I 
met the tide of those rabbits, the damned red flags of the re- 
bellion began to thicken and flaunt along the wall they had 
just deserted, and one was already waving over the guns of 
the dead Gushing. I ordered those men to "Aa?^," and '^face 
about, ^^ and "^re," and they heard my voice, and gathered 
my meaning, and obeyed my commands. On some unpatriotic 
backs, of those not quick of comprehension, the flat of my 
sabre fell, not lightly ; and at its touch their love of country 
returned, and with a look at me as if I were the destroying 
angel, as I might have become theirs, they again faced the 
enemy. General Webb soon came to my assistance. He was 
on foot, but he was active, and did all that one could do to re- 
pair the breach or to avert its calamity. The men that had 
fallen back, facing the enemy, soon regained confidence and 
became steady. This portion of the wall was lost to us, and 
the enemy have gained the cover of the reverse side, where he 
now stormed with fire. But Webb's men, with their bodies 
in part protected by the abruptness of the crest, now sent back 



62 

in the enemy's faces as fierce a storm. Some scores of ven- 
turesome rebels that, in their first push at the wall, had dared 
to cross at the further angle, and those that had desecrated 
Cushing's guns, were promptly shot down, and speedy death 
met him who should raise his body to cross it again. At this 
point little could be seen of the enemy, by reason of his cover 
and the smoke, except the flash of his muskets and his waving 
flags. Those red flags were accumulating at the wall every 
moment, and they maddened us as the same color does the 
bull. Webb's men were falling fast, and he is among them to 
direct and encourage; but however well they may now do, 
with that walled enemy in front, with more than a dozen 
flags to Webb's three, it soon becomes apparent that in not 
many minutes they will be overpowered, or that there will be 
none alive for the enemy to overpower. Webb has but three 
regiments, all small, — the Sixty-ninth, Seventy-first, and 
Seventy-second Pennsylvania ; — the One Hundred and Sixth 
Pennsylvania, except two companies, is not here to-day, — and 
he must have speedy assistance or this crest will be lost. Oh ! 
where is Gibbon, — where is Hancock, — some general, any- 
body, with the power and the will to support this wasting, 
melting line? No general came, and no succor! I thought of 
Hays upon the right; but from the smoke and roar along his 
front, it Avas evident he had enough upon his hands, if he 
stayed the inrolling tide of the rebels there. Doubleday upon 
the left was too far oft', and too slow, and on another occasion 
I had begged him to send his idle regiments to support an- 
other line, battling with thrice its numbers, and this "Old 
Sumter Hero" had declined. 

As a last resort I resolved to see if Hall and Harrow could 
not send some cf their commands to reinforce Webb. I gal- 
loped to the left in the execution of my purpose, and as I 
attained the rear of Hall's line, from the nature of the ground 
there, and the position of the enemy, it was easy to discover 
the reason and the manner of this gathering of rebel flags in 
front of Webb. The enemy, emboldened by his success in 
gaining our line by the group of trees and the angle of the 
wall, was concentrating all his right against, and was further 



63 

pressing that point. There was the stress of his assault, — 
there would he drive his fiery wedge to split our line. In front 
of Harrow's and Hall's brigades he had been able to advance no 
nearer than when he first halted to deliver fire ; and these 
commands had not yielded an inch. To effect the concentra- 
tion before Webb, the enemy would march the regiment on 
his extreme right of each of his lines, by the left flank, to the 
rear of the troops, still halted and facing to the front, and so 
continuing to draw in his right. When they were all massed 
in the position desired, he would again face them to the front, 
and advance to the storming. This was the way he made the 
wall before Webb's line blaze with his battle flags, and such 
was the purpose then of his thick-crowding battalions. Not a 
moment must be lost. Colonel Hall I found just in rear of his 
line, sword in hand, cool, vigilant, noting all that passed, and 
directing the battle of his brigade. The fire was constantly 
diminishing now in his front, in the manner, by the movement 
of the enemy, that I have mentioned, drifting to the right. 
"How is it going?" Colonel Hall asked me as I rode up. "Well, 
but Webb is hotly pressed, and must have support, or he will 
be overpowered. Can you assist him?" "Yes." "You can- 
not be too quick." "I will move my brigade at once." "Good." 
He gave the order, and in briefest time I saw^ five friendly col- 
ors hurrying to the aid of the imperilled three ; and each color 
represented true, battle-tried men, that had not turned back 
from rebel fire that day nor yesterday, though their ranks 
were sadly thinned. To Webb's brigade, pressed back as it 
had been from the wall, the distance was not great from Hall's 
right. The regiments marched by the right flank. Colonel 
Hall superintended the movement in person. Colonel Dever- 
eax coolly commanded the Nineteenth Massachusetts, — his 
major. Rice, had already been wounded and carried off. Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Macy, of the Twentieth Massachusetts, had 
just had his left hand shot oft', and so Captain Abbott gallant- 
ly led over this fine regiment ; the Forty-second New York fol- 
lowed their excellent colonel, Mallon. Lieutenant-Colonel 
Steele, Seventh Michigan, had just been killed, and this regi- 
ment, and the handful of the Fifty-ninth New York, followed 



64 

their colors. The movement, as it did, attracting the enemy's 
fire, and executed in haste, as it must be, was difficult ; but in 
reasonable time, and in order that is serviceable, if not regu- 
lar, Hall's men are fighting gallantly side by side with Webb's, 
before the all-important point. I did not stop to see all this 
movement of Hall's, but from him I went further to the left, 
to the First Brigade, G-eneral Harrow I did not see, but his 
fighting men would answer my purpose as well. The Nine- 
teenth Maine, the Fifteenth Massachusetts, the Eighty-second 
New York, and the shattered old thunderbolt, the First Minne- 
sota — poor Farrell was dying then upon the ground where he 
had fallen — all men that I could find, I took over to the right 
at the double quick. As we were moving to, and near, the 
other brigades of the division, from my position on horseback 
I could see that the enemy's right, under Hall's fire, was be- 
ginning to stagger and to break. "See, " I said to the men, 
"see the 'chivalry,' see the gray -backs run I" The men saw, 
and as they swept to their places by the side of Hall's and 
opened fire, they roared, and this in a manner that said more 
plainly than words, — for the deaf could have seen it in their 
faces, and the blind could have heard it in their voices, — the 
crest is safe ! 

The whole division concentrated, and changes of position, 
and new phases, as well on our part as on that of the enemy, 
having, as indicated, occurred, for the purpose of showing the 
exact present posture of affairs some further description is 
necessary. Before the Second Division the enemy is massed, 
the main bulk of his force covered by the ground that slopes 
to his rear, with his front at the stone wall. Between his 
front and us extends the very apex of the crest. All there are 
left of the White Trefoil Division, — yesterday morning there 
were three thousand eight hundred; this morning there were 
less than three thousand; at this moment there are somewhat 
over two thousand. — twelve regiments in three brigades, are 
below, or behind the crest, in such a position that by the ex- 
posure of the head and upper part of the body above the crest 
they can deliver their fire in the enemy's faces along the top 
of the wall. By reason of the disorganization incidental, in 



65 

Webb's brigade, to his men having broken and fallen back, as 
mentioned, in the two other brigades to their rapid and diffi- 
cult change of position under fire, and in all the division, in 
part, to severe and continuous battle, formation of companies 
and regiments in regular ranks is lost; but commands, com- 
panies, regiments, and brigades are blinded and intermixed, 
— an irregular, extended mass, — men enough, if in order, to 
form a line of four or five ranks along the whole front of the 
division. The twelve flags of the regiments wave defiantly at 
intervals along the front; at the stone wall, at unequal dis- 
tances from ours of forty, fifty or sixty yards, stream nearly 
double this number of battle flags of the enemy. These 
changes accomplished on either side, and the concentration 
complete, although no cessation or abatement of the general 
din of conflict since tlie commencement had at any time been 
appreciable, now it was as if a new battle, deadlier, stormier 
than before, had sprung from the body of the old ; a young 
phoenix of combat, whose eyes stream lightning, shaking his 
arrowy wings over the yet glowing ashes of his progenitor. 
The jostling, swaying lines on either side boil, and roar, and 
dash their foamy spray, two hostile billows of a fiery ocean. 
Thick flashes stream from the wall; thick volleys answer from 
the crest. No threats or expostulation now; only example and 
encouragement. All depths of passion are stirred, and all com- 
bative fire, down to their deep foundations. Individuality is 
drowned in a sea of clamor; and timid men, breathing the 
breath of the multitude, are brave. The frequent dead and 
wounded lie where they stagger and fall; there is no human- 
ity for them now, and none can be spared to care for them. 
The men do not cheer, or shout, — they growl: and over that 
uneasy sea, heard with the roar of musketry, sweeps the mut- 
tered thunder of a storm of growls. Webb, Hall, Devereux, 
Mallon, Abbott, among the men where all are heroes, are doing 
deeds of note. Now the loyal wave rolls up as if it would 
overleap its barrier, the crest; pistols flash with the muskets. 
My ''Forward to the wall " is answered by the rebel counter- 
command, "Steady, men," and the wave swings back. Again 
it surges, and again it sinks. These men of Pennsylvania, on 



66 

the soil of their own homesteads, the first and only ones to flee 
the wall, must be the first to storm it. "Major, lead, lead 
your men over the crest, — they will follow!" -By the tac- 
tics. I understand my place is in the rear of the men.'' "Your 
pardon, sir; I see your place is in rear of the men. I thought 
you were fit to lead. Captain Suplee, come on with your 
men." "Let me first stop this fire in the rear, or we shall be 
hit by our own men." "Never mind the fire in the rear; let 
us take care of this in front first." "Sergeant, forward with 
your color. Let the rebels see it close to their eyes once more 
before they die." The color sergeant of the Seventy-second 
Pennsylvania, grasping the stump of the severed lance in both 
his hands, waved the flag above his head, and rushed toward 
the wall. "Will you see your color storm the wall alone?" 
One man only started to follow. Almost half way to the wall, 
down go color bearer and color to the ground, — the gallant 
sergeant is dead. The line springs; the crest of the solid ground, 
with a great roar, heaves forward its maddened load, — men, 
arms, smoke, fire, a fighting mass; it rolls to the wall: flash 
meets flash; the wall is crossed; a moment ensues of thrusts, 
yells, blows, shots, an undistinguished conflict, followed by a 
shout, universal, that makes the welkin ring again; and the 
last and bloodiest fight of the great battle of Gettysburg is 
ended and won. 

Many things cannot be described by pen or pencil; such a 
fight is one. Some hints and incidents may be given, but a 
description or picture, never. From what is told the imagi- 
nation may for itself construct the scene; otherwise he who 
never saw, can have no adequate idea of what such a battle is. 

When the vortex of battle passion had subsided, hopes, 
fears, rage, joy, of which the maddest and the noisiest was the 
last, and we were calm enough to look about us, we saw that, 
as with us, the fight with the Third Division was ended; and 
that in that division was a repetition of the scenes immediate- 
ly about us. In that moment the judgment almost refused to 
credit the senses. Are these abject wretches about us, whom 
our men are now disarming, and driving together in flocks, 
the jaunty men of Pickett's Division, whose steady lines and 



67 

flashing arms, but a few moments since, were sweeping up the 
slope to destroy us? Are these red cloths that our men toss 
about in derision the "fiery Southern crosses," thrice ardent, 
the battle-flags of the rebellion that waved defiance at the 
wall? We know, but so sudden has been the transition we 
yet can scarce believe. 

Just as the fight was over, and the first outburst of victory 
had a little subsided, when all in front of the crest was noise 
and confusion, prisoners being collected, small parties in pur- 
suit of them far down into the field, flags waving, officers 
giving quick, sharp commands to their men, I stood apart for 
a few moments upon the crest, by that group of trees which 
ought to be historic forever; a spectator of the thrilling scenes 
around. Some few musket shots were still heard in the Third 
Division; and the enemy's guns, almost silent since the 
advaQC3 of his infantry, until the moment of his defeat, were 
dropping a few sullen shells among friend and foe upon the 
crest, — rebellion fosters such humanity. Near me, saddest 
sight of the many of such a field, and not in keeping with all 
this noise, were mingled, alone, the thick dead of Maine, and 
Minnesota, and Michigan, and Massachusetts, and the Empire 
and Keystone States, who, not yet cold, with the blood still 
oozing from their death wounds, had given their lives to the 
country upon that stormy field. So mingled upon that crest 
let their honored graves be. Look, with me, about us. These 
dead have been avenged already. Where the long lines of 
the enemy's thousands so proudly advanced, see now how 
thick the silent men of gray are scattered. It is not an hour 
since those legions were sweeping along so grandly, — now 
sixteen hundred of their fiery mass are strewn among the 
trampled grass, dead as the clods they load ; more than seven 
thousand, probably eight thousand, are wounded, some there 
with the dead in our hands, some fugitive far towards the 
woods, among them Generals Pettigrew, Garnett, Kemper 
and Armistead, the last three mortally, and the last one in 
our hands, — '-Tell General Hancock," he said to Lieutenant 
Mitchell, Hancock's aide-de-camp, to whom he handed his 
watch, " that I know I did my country a great wrong when I 



68 

took up arms against hei", for which I am sorry, hut for which 
I cannot Hve to atone." Four thousand not wounded are 
prisoners of war; more in number of the captured than the 
captors. Our men are still " gathering them in." Some hold 
up their hands, or a handkerchief, in sign of submission; some 
have hugged the ground to escape our bullets, and so are 
taken; few made resistance after the first moment of our 
crossing the wall; some yield submissively with good grace, 
some with grim, dogged aspect, showing that, but for the 
other alternative, they would not submit to this. Colonels, 
and all less grades of officers, in the usual proportions, are 
among them, and all are being stripped of their arms. Such 
of them as escaped wounds and capture are fleeing, routed 
and panic-stricken, and disappearing in the woods. Small 
arms, more thousands than we can count, are in our hands, 
scattered over the field. And these defiant battle-flags, some 
inscribed with "First Manassas," "South Mountain," "Sharps- 
burg" (our Antietam), "Fredericksburg," "Chancellorsville,"' 
and many more names, our men have, and are showing about, 
over thirty of them. 

Such was really the closing scene of the grand drama of 
Gettysburg. After repeated assaults upon the right and the 
left, where, and in all of which, repulse had been his only 
success, this persistent and presuming enemy forms his chosen 
troops, the flower of his army, for a grand assault upon our 
centre. The manner and the result of such assault have been 
told, — a loss to the enemy of from twelve thousand to four- 
teen thousand, killed, wounded and prisoners, and of over 
thirty battle-flags. This was accomplished by not over six 
thousand men, with a loss on our part of not over two thou- 
sand five hundred killed and wounded. 

Would to heaven Generals Hancock and Gibbon could have 
stood there where I did, and have looked upon that field! It 
would have done two men, to whom the country owes much, 
good to have been with their men in that moment of victory, 
to have seen the results of those dispositions which they had 
made, and of that splendid fighting which men schooled by 
their discipline had executed. But they are both severely 



69 

wounded, and have been carried fi'om the field. One person 
did come that I was glad to see there; and he was no less than 
Major-General Meade, whom the Army of the Potomac was 
fortunate enough to have at that time to command it. See 
how a great general looked upon the field, and what he said 
and did, at the moment, and when he learned of his great 
victory. 

To appreciate the incident I give, it should be borne in mind 
that one coming up from the rear of the line, as did General 
Meade, could have seen very little of our own men, who had 
now crossed the crest, and although he could have heard the 
noise he could not have told its occasion, or by whom made, 
until he had actually attained the crest. One who did not 
know results, so coming, would have been quite as likely to 
have supposed that our line there had been carried and cap- 
tured by the enemy, so many gray rebels were on the crest, as 
to have discovered the real truth. Such mistake was really 
made by one of our own officers as I shall relate. 

General Meade rode up, accompanied alone by his son, who 
is his aide-de-camp, — an escort, if select, not large for a com- 
mander of such an army. The principal horseman was no 
bedizened hero of some holiday review, but he was a plain 
man, dressed in a serviceable summer suit of dark blue cloth, 
without badge or ornament, save the shoulder straps of his 
grade, and a light, straight sword of a general, or general 
staff officer. He wore heavy high top boots and bufi" gaunt- 
lets, and his soft black felt hat was slouched down over his 
eyes. His face was very Avhite, not pale, and the lines were 
marked and earnest, and full of care. As he arrived near me, 
coming up the hill, he asked in a sharp, eager voice, " How is 
it going here? " "I believe. General, the army is repulsed," 
I answered. Still approaching, and a new light began to 
come upon his face, of gratified surprise, with a touch of in- 
credulity, of which his voice was also the medium, he further 
asked, '' What! is the assault entirely repulsed f his voice 
quicker and more eager than before. "It is, sir," I replied. 
By this time he was on the crest, and when his eye had for an 
instant swept over the field, taking in just a glance of the 



10 

whole, — the masses of prisoners, the numerous captured fiags, 
which the men were derisively flaunting about, the fugitives 
of the routed enemy disappearing with the speed of terror in 
the woods, — partly at what I had told him, partly at what he 
saw. he said impressively, and his face was lighted, ' ' Thank 
God." And then his right hand moved as if he would have 
caught off his hat and waved it; but this gesture he suppressed, 
and instead he waved his hand, and said, "Hur-rahl" The 
son, with more youth in his blood, and less rank upon his 
shoulders, snatched off his cap and roared out his three 
"hurrahs" right heartily. The general then surveyed the 
field some minutes in silence. He at length asked who was in 
command. He had heard that Hancock and Gibbon were 
wounded, and I told him that General Caldwell was the senior 
officer of the corps, and General Hairow of the division. He 
asked where they were, but before I had time to answer that 
I did not know, he resumed, ''No matter; I will give my orders 
to you, and you will see them executed." He then gave 
directions that the troops should be re-formed as soon as prac- 
ticable, and kept in their places, as the enemy might be mad 
enough to attack again; he also gave directions concerning the 
posting of some reinforcements; which he said would soon be 
there, adding, "7/" the enemy does attack, charge him in the 
flanks and sweep him from the field, — do you understand? " 
The general, then a gratified man, galloped in the direction of 
his headquarters. 

Then the work of the field went on. First the prisoners 
were collected and sent to the rear. "There go the men," the 
rebels were heard to say by some of our surgeons who were in 
Gettysburg, at the time Pickett's division marched out to take 
position — "there go the men that will go through your d— d 
Yankee lines for you." A good many of them did "g^o 
through our lines for us,''' but in a very different way from 
the one they intended, — not impetuous victors, sweeping 
away our thin line with ball and bayonet, but crestfallen cap- 
tives, without arms, guarded by the truce bayonets of the 
Union, with the cheers of their conquerors ringing in their 
ears. There was a grain of truth, after all, in this rebel re- 



71 

mark. Collected, the prisoners began their dreary march, a 
miserable, melancholy stream of dirty gray to pour over the 
crest to our rear. Many of their officers were well-dressed, 
fine, proud gentlemen, such men as it would be a pleasure to 
meet when the war is over. I had no desire to exult over 
them, and pity and sympathy were the general feelings of us 
all over the occasion. The cheering of our men, and the un- 
ceremonious handling of the captive flags, were probably not 
gratifying to the prisoners, but not intended for taunt or in 
suit to the men ; they could take no exception to such prac- 
tices. When the prisoners were turned to the rear and were 
crossing the crest, Lieuteimnt-Colonel Morgan, General Han- 
cock's chief of staff, was conducting a battery from the 
artillery reserve towards the Second Corps. As he saw the 
men in gray coming over the hill, he said to the officer in 
command of the battery, "See up there ; the enemy has 
carried the crest. See them come pouring over. The old 
Second Corps has gone, and you had better get your battery 
away from here as quickly as possible, or it will be captured." 
The officer was actually giving the order to his men to move 
back, when closer observation discovered that the graybacks 
that were coming had no arms, and then the truth flashed 
upon the minds of the observers. The same mistake was 
made by others. 

In view of the results there that day, — the successes of the 
arms of the country, — would not the people of the whole 
country, standing then upon the crest with General Meade, 
have said with him, "Thank God"? 

I have no knowledge, and little notion, of how long a time 
elapsed from the moment the fire of the infantry commenced 
until the enemy was entirely repulsed in this his grand assault. 
I judge, from the amount of fighting, that probably the fight 
was of nearly an hour's duration, but I cannot tell, and I have 
seen none who knew. The time seemed but a very few min- 
utes when the battle was over. 

When the prisoners were cleared away, and order was again 
established upon the crest, where the conflict had impaired it, 
until between five and six o'clock, I remained upon the field 



72 

directing troops to their positions, in conformity to the orders 
of General Meade, The enemy appeared no more in front of 
the Second Corps ; hut while I was engaged as I have men- 
tioned, further to our left some considerahle force of the 
enemy moved out and made a show of attack. Our artillery 
now in good order again, in due time opened fire, and the 
shells scattered the '^Butteniids' as cluhs do the gray snow- 
birds of winter, before they came within range of our infan- 
try. This, save unimportant outpost firing, was the last of 
the battle. 

Of the pursuit of the enemy, and the movements of the 
army subsequent to the battle, until the crossing of the 
Potomac by Lee, and the closing of the campaign, it is not my 
purpose to write. Suffice it, that on the night of the 3d of 
July the enemy withdrew his left, EwelFs corps, from our 
front, and on the morning of the 4th we again occupied the 
village of Gettysburg, and on that national day victory was 
proclaimed to the country ; that floods of rain on that day pre- 
vented army movement of any considerable magnitude, the 
day being passed by our army in position upon the field, in bury- 
ing our dead and some of those of the enemy, and in making 
the movements already indicated ; that on the 5th the pursuit 
of the enemy was commenced, his dead were buried by us, 
and the corps of our army, upon various roads, moved from 
the battle-field. 

With a statement of some of the results of the battle, as to 
losses, and captures, and of what I saw in riding over the field 
when the army was gone, my account is done. 

Our own losses in "killed, wounded, and missing" I esti- 
mate at tiventy-three thousand. Of the "missing" the larger 
proportion were prisoners lost on the 1st of July. Our loss 
in prisoners, not wounded, probably was four thousand. The 
losses were distributed among the different army corps about 
as follows : In the Second Corps, which sustained the heaviest 
loss of any corps, a little over four thousand five hundred, of 
whom the "missing" were a mere nominal number ; in the 
First Corps, a little over four thousand., of whom a good many 
were "missing"; in the Third Corps, four thousand, of whom 



73 

some were "missing" ; in the Eleventh Corps, four thousand, 
of whom the most were "missing"; and the rest of the loss, to 
make the aggregate mentioned, were shared hy the Fifth, 
Sixth and Twelfth Corps and the cavalry. Among these the 
"missing" were few, and the losses of the Sixth Corps and the 
cavalry were light. I do not think the official reports will 
show my estimate of losses to he far from correct, for I have 
taken great pains to question staff ofhcers upon the subject, 
and have learned approximate numbers from them. We lost 
no gun or flag, that I have heard of, in all the battle. Some 
small arms, I suppose, were lost on the 1st of July. 

The enemy's loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, I esti- 
mate at forty thousand, and from the following data, and for 
the following reasons : So far as I can learn we took teii thou- 
sand prisoners, who were not wounded, — many more than 
these were captured, but several thousands of them were 
wounded. I have, so far as practicable, ascertained the num- 
ber of dead the enemy left upon the field, approximately, by 
getting the reports of different burying parties. I think the 
dead upon the field were five thousand, almost all of whom, 
save those killed on the 1st of July, were buried by us, the 
enemy not having them in their possession. In looking at a 
great number of tables of killed and wounded in battles, I 
have found that the proportion of the killed to the wounded is 
as one to five, or more than five ; rarely less than five. So 
with the killed at the number stated, twenty-five thousand 
would probably be wounded ; hence the aggregate that I have 
mentioned. I ihin^ fourteen thousand of the enemy, wounded 
and unwounded, fell into our hands. Great numbers of his 
small arms, two or three guns, and forty or more — was there 
ever such bannered harvest? — of his regimental battleflags, 
were captured by us. Some day, possibly, we may learn the 
enemy's loss, but I doubt if he will ever tell truly how many 
flags he did not take home with him. I have great confidence, 
however, in my estimates, for they have been carefully made, 
and after much inquiry, and with no desire or motive to over- 
estimate the enemy's loss. 

The magnitude of the armies engaged, the number of the 



7-i 

casualities, the object sought by the rebel, the result, will all 
contribute to give Gettysburg a place among the great historic 
battles of the world. That General Meade's concentration 
was rapid, — over thirty miles a day were marched by several 
of the corps, — that his position was skillfully selected, and 
his dispositions good, that he fought the battle hard and well, 
that his victory was brilliant and complete, I think all should 
admit. I cannot but regard it as highly fortunate to us, and 
commendable in General Meade, that the enemy was allowed 
the initiative, the offensive in the main battle ; that it was 
much better to allow the rebel, for his own destruction, to 
come up and smash his lines and columns upon the defensive 
solidity of our position, than it would have been to hunt him, 
for the same purpose, in the woods, or to unearth him from 
his rifle-pits. In this manner our losses were lighter, and his 
heavier, than if the case had been reversed. And whatever 
the books may say of troops fighting the better who make the 
attack, I am satisfied that in this war, Americans, the rebels 
as well as ourselves, are best on the defensive. The proposi- 
tion is deducible from the battles of the war, I think, and my 
observation confirms it. 

But men there are who think that nothing was gained or 
done well in this battle, because some other general did not 
have the command, or because any portion of the army of the 
enemy was permitted to escape capture or destruction. As if 
one army of a hundred thousand men could encounter another 
of the same number of as good troops, and annihilate it. Mil- 
itary men do not claim or expect this ; but the sensational 
paragraphers do ; the doughty knights of purchasable news- 
paper quills ; the formidable warriors from the brothels of 
politics ; men of much warlike experience against — honesty 
and honor; of profound attainments in — ignorance; who 
have the maxims of Napoleon, whose spirit they as little 
understand as they do most things, to quote to prove all 
things , but who, unfortunately, have much influence in the 
country and with the government, and so over the army. It 
is very pleasant for these people, no doubt, at safe distances 
from guns, in the enjoyment of a lucrative office, or of a fraud- 



75 

uleiitly obtained government contract, surrounded by the lux- 
uries of their own firesides, where mad and flooding storms 
and other weariness never penetrate, to discourse of battles, 
and how campaigns should be conducted, and armies of the 
enemy should be destroyed. But it should be enough, perhaps, 
to say that men here or elsewhere, who have knowledge 
enough of military affairs to entitle them to express an opin- 
ion on such matters, and accurate information enough to real- 
ize the nature and means of this desired destruction of Lee's 
army, before it crossed the Potomac into Virginia, will be most 
likely to vindicate the Pennsylvania campaign of General 
Meade, and to see that he accomplished all that could have 
been reasonably expected of any general, of any army. Com- 
plaint has been, and is, made specifically against Meade, that 
he did not attack Lee near Williamsport, before he had time 
to withdraw across the river. These were the facts concern- 
ing the matter. 

The 13th of July was the earliest day when such an attack, 
if practicable at all, could have been made. The time before 
this, since the battle, had been spent in moving the army from 
the vicinity of the field, finding something of the enemy, and 
concentrating before him. On that day the army was con- 
centrated, and in order of battle, near the turnpike that leads 
from Sharpsburg to Hagarstown, Md., the right resting at or 
near the latter place, the, left near Jones's Cross-roads, some 
six miles in the direction of Sharpsburg, and in the following 
order from left to right : the Twelfth Corps, the Second, the 
Fifth, the Sixth, the First, the Eleventh', — the Third being 
in reserve behind the Second. 

The mean distance to the Potomac was some six miles, and 
the enemy was between Meade and the river: The Potomac, 
swelled by the recent rain, was boiling and swift and deep, a 
magnificent place to have drowned all this rebel crew. I have 
not the least doubt but that General Meade would have liked 
to drown them all, if he could, but they were unwilling to be 
drowned, and would fight first. To drive them into the river, 
then, they must first be routed. General Meade, I believe, 
favored an attack upon the enemy at this time, and he sum- 



76 

inoned his corps commanders to a council upon tlie subject. 
The First Corps was represented by Wadsworth ; the Second 
by William Hays ; the Third by French ; the Fifth by Sykes ; 
the Sixth by Sedgwick ; the Eleventh by Howard ; the Twelfth 
by Slocum ; and the cavalry by Pleasonton. Of the eight gen- 
erals, three, Wadsworth, Howard and Pleasonton, were in 
favor of immediate attack ; and five, Hays, French, Sykes, 
Sedgwick, and Slocum, were not in favor of attack initil bet- 
ter information was obtained of the position and situation of 
the enemy. Of the pros, Wadsworth only temporarily repre- 
sented the First Corps, in the brief absence of Newton, who, 
had a battle occurred, would have commanded ; Pleasanton, 
with his horses, would have been a spectator only ; and How- 
ard had lost so large a portion of the Eleventh Corps at 
Gettysburg, that he could scarcely have been relied upon to do 
effective work with his command. Such was the position of 
those who felt sanguinely inclined. Of the co7is, were all of 
the fighting generals of the fighting corps save the First. 
This, then, was the feeling of these generals. All who would 
have had no responsibility or part, in all probability, hankered 
for a fight ; those who would had both part and responsibility, 
did not. The attack was not made. At daylight on the morn- 
ing of the lith, strong reconnoissance from the Twelfth, Sec- 
ond, and Fifth Corps were the means of discovering that 
between the enemy, except a thousand or fifteen hundred of 
his rear-guard, who fell into our hands, and the Army of the 
Potomac, rolled the rapid unbridged river. The rebel general 
Pettigrew was here killed. The enemy had constructed bridges, 
had crossed during all the preceding night, but so close were 
our cavalry and infantry upon him in the morning that the 
bridges were destroyed before the rear guard had all crossed. 
Among the considerations influencing these generals against 
the propriety of attack at that time were probably the follow- 
ing: The army was wearied and worn down by four weeks of 
constant forced marching or battle, in the midst of heat, mud, 
and drenching showers, burdened with arms, accoutrements, 
blankets, sixty to a hundred cartridges, and five to eight days' 
rations. What such weariness means, few save soldiers 



know. Since the battle the army had been constantly dim- 
inished by sickness or prostration, and by more straggling 
than I ever saw before. Poor fellows ! they could not help it. 
The men were near the point where further efficient physical 
exertion was quite impossible. Even the sound of the skirm- 
ishing, which was almost constant, and the excitement of 
impending battle, had no effect to arouse for an hour the 
exhibition of their wonted former vigor. The enemy's loss in 
battle, it is true, had been far heavier than ours; but his army 
was less weary than ours, for in a given time since the first of 
the campaign it had marched far less, and with lighter loads. 
The rebels are accustomed to hunger and nakedness, customs 
to which our men do not take readily. And the enemy had 
straggled less, for the men were going away from battle, and 
towards home; and for them to straggle was to go into captiv- 
ity, whose end they could not conjecture. The enemy were 
somewhere in position, in a ridgy, wooded country, abound- 
ing in strong defensive positions, his main bodies concealed, 
protected by rifle-pits and epaulements, acting strictly on the 
defensive. His dispositions, his positions, even, with any 
considerable degree of accuracy, were unknown; nor could 
they be known, except by reconuoissances in such force, and 
carried to such extent, as would have constituted them attacks, 
liable to bring on at any moment a general engagement, and 
at places where we were least prepared, and least likely to be 
successful. To have had a battle there, then. General Meade 
would have had to attack a cunning enemy in the dark, where 
surprises, undiscovered rifle-pits and batteries, and unseen 
bodies of men, might have met his forces at every point. 
With his not greatly superior numbers, under such circum- 
stances, had General Meade attacked, would he have been 
victorious? The vote of those generals at the council shows 
their opinion. My opinion is, that he would have been 
repulsed with heavy loss, with little damage to the enemy. 
Such a result might have satisfied the bloody politicians better 
than the end of the campaign as it was; but I think the 
country did not need that sacrifice of the Army of the Poto- 
mac at that time, — that enough odor of sacrifice came up to its 



78 

nostrils from the First Fredericksburg field to stop their snuff- 
ing for some time. I felt the probability of defeat strongly at 
the time, when we all supposed a conflict would certainly 
ensue; for always before a battle, at least it so appears to me, 
some dim presentiment of results, some unaccountable fore- 
shadowing, pervades the army, — I nev^er knew the result to 
prove it untrue, — which rests with the weight of convic- 
tion. Whether such shadows are cause, or consequence, I 
shall not pretend to determine; but when, as they often are, 
they are general^ I think they should not be wholly disre- 
garded by the commanders. I believe the Army of the Poto- 
mac is always willing, often eager, to fight the enemy, when- 
ever, as it thinks, there is a fair chance for victory; that it 
always will fight, let come victory or defeat, whenever it is 
ordered so to do. Of course the army, both officers and men, 
had very great disappointment and very great sorrow that 
the rebel escaped, — so it was called, — across the river. The 
disappointment was genuine, at least to the extent that dis- 
appointment is like surprise; but the sorrow, to judge by 
looks, tones and actions, rather than by words, was not of 
that deep, sable character for which there is no balm. Would 
it be an imputation upon the courage or patriotism of this 
army if it was not rampant for fight at this particular time 
and under the existing circumstances? Had the enemy stayed 
upon the left bank of the Potomac twelve hours longer there 
would have been a great battle thei-e near Williamsport, on 
the 14th of July. After such digression, if such it is, I return 
to Grettysburg. 

As good generalship is claimed for General Meade in this 
battle, so was the conduct of his subordinate commanders 
good. I know and have heard of no bad conduct or blunder- 
ing on the part of any officer, unless the unauthorized move- 
ment of General Sickles, on the 2d of July, may be so charac- 
terized.* . . . The Eleventh Corps was outnumbered and 



* Comrade Haskell, in his paper, at this point makes some severe strictures 
upon General Sickles for his disobedience of orders in advancing his corps 
beyond the general line of battle on July 2, and indulges in reflections upon 



79 

outflanked on the first day, and when forced to fall back 
from their position, did not do it with the firmness and steadi- 
ness which might have been expected of veteran troops. 
With this exception, and some minor cases of very little con- 
sequence in the general result, our troops, whenever and 
wherever the enemy came, stood against them with storms of 
impassable fire. Such was the infantry, such the artillery. 
The cavalry did less, but it did all that was required. 

The enemy, too, showed a determination and valor worthy 
of a better cause; their conduct in this battle even makes me 
proud of them as Americans. They would have been victori- 
ous over any but the best of soldiers. Lee and his generals 
presumed too much upon some past successes, and did not 
estimate how much they were due, on their part, to position, 
as at Fredericksburg, or on our part to bad generalship, as at 
the Second Bull Run and Chancellorsville. 

The fight of the 1st of July we do not, of course, claim as a 
victory; but even that probably would have resulted differently 
had Reynolds not been struck. The success of the enemy in 
the battle ended with the 1st of July. The rebels were joy- 
ous and jubilant, — so said our men in their hands, and 
the citizens of Gettysburg, — at their achievements on that 
day. Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville were remembered 
by them. They saw victory already won, or only to be 
snatched from the '■'■raiv Pennsylvania Militia,'^ as they 
thought they were when they saw them run ; and already 
the spires of Baltimore and the dome of the national capitol 
were forecast upon their glad vision, only two or three days' 
march away through the beautiful valleys of Pennsylvania and 

that brave officer, who lost his leg then and there, which I am persuaded time 
would have modified in his own mind, and which, if living, he would eliminate 
entirely from the text of his splendid story. We have, therefore, without 
changing or varying in the slightest degree any statement of fact, taken the 
liberty to omit entirely two or three of his sentences, and to change and soften 
a harsh expression or two, here and elsewhere, in respect to General Sickles, in 
reference to some of the troops engaged in the battle, and in regard to some 
other mere matters of opinion which to-day have ceased to be of any interest. 
This is done in justice to Colonel Haskell, as well as to brave and desei'ving men 
who here " gave the last full measure of devotion." — D. H. 



80 

^'■my-- Maryland, "Was there ever anything so fine before I 
How pleasant it would be to enjoy the poultry and the fruit, 
the meats, the cakes, the beds, the clothing, the whiskey, 
without price, in this rich land of the Yankee ! It would 
indeed! But on the 2d of July something of a change came 
over the spirit of their dreams. They Wx'^re surprised at 
results, and talked less and thought more, as they prepared 
supper that night. After the fight of the 3d, they talked only 
of the means of their own safety from destruction. Pickett's 
splendid division had been almost annihilated, they said; and 
they talked not of how many were lost, but of who had 
escaped. They talked of those "Yanks" that had cluhs on 
their flags and caps, — the trefoils of the Second Corps, that 
are like cluhs in cards. 

The battle of Gettysburg is distinguished in this war, not 
only as by far the greatest and severest conflict that has 
occurred, but for some other things that I may mention. The 
fight of the 2d of July, on the left, which was almost a sepa- 
rate and complete battle, is, so far as I know, alone in the fol- 
lowing particulars: the nutnbers of men engaged at one time, 
and the enormous losses that occurred in killed and wounded, 
in the space of about two hours. If the truth could be obtained, 
it would probably show a much larger number of casualities 
in this, than my estimate in a former part of these sheets. 
Few battles of the war have had so many casualties altogether 
as those of the two hours on the 2d of July. The 3d of July is 
distinguished. Then occurred the ' ' great cannonade, " — so we 
call it, and so it would be called in any war and in almost any 
battle. And besides this, the main operations that followed 
have few parallels in history, none in this war, of the magnitude 
and magnificence of the assault, single and simultaneous, the 
disparity of numbers engaged, and the brilliancy, completeness, 
and overwhelming character of the result in favor of the side 
numerically the weakest. I think I have not, in giving the 
results of this encounter, over-estimated the number or the 
losses of the enemy. We learned on all hands, by prisoners, 
and by their newspapers, that over two divisions moved up to 
the assault, — Pickett's and Pettigrew's, — that this was the 



81 

first engagement of Pickett's in the battle, and the first of 
Pettigrew's save a fight participation on the 1st of July. The 
rebel divisions usually number nine or ten thousand, or did at 
that time, as we understood. Then I have seen something of 
troops, and think I can estimate the number somewhat. The 
number of rebels killed here I have estimated in this Avay. 
The second and thii-d divisions of the Second Corps buried the 
rebel dead in their own front, and where they fought upon 
their own g' ounds. By count they buried over one thousand 
eight hundred. I think no more than about two hundred of 
these were killed on the 2d of July in front of the Second 
Division and the rest must have fallen upon the 3d. My esti- 
mates that depend upon this contingency may be erroneous, 
but to no great extent. The rest of the particulars of this 
assault, our own losses and our captures, I know are approx- 
imately accurate. Yet the whole sounds like romance, a grand 
stage-piece of blood. 

Of all the Corps d'Armee, for hard fighting, severe losses, 
and brilliant resvfits, the palm should be, as by the army it is, 
awarded to the " Old Second."" It did more fighting than any 
other corps, inflicted severer loss upon the enemy, in killed 
and wounded, and sustained a heavier like loss ; and captured 
more flags than all the rest of the army, and almost as many 
prisoners as the rest of the army. The loss of the Second 
Corps in killed and wounded in this battle — there is no other 
test of hard fighting — was almost as great as that of all of 
General G-rant's forces, in the battles that preceded, and in 
the siege of Vicksburg. Three-eighths of the whole corps were 
killed and wounded. Why does the Western Army suppose 
that the Army of the Potomac does not fight? Was ever a 
more absurd supposition? The Army of the Potomac is grand! 
Give it good leadership — let it alone — and it will not fail to 
accomplish all that reasonable men desire. 

Of Gibbon's white trefoil division, if I am not cautious, I 
shall speak too enthusiastically. This division has been accus- 
tomed to distinguished leadership. Sumner, Sedgwick, and 
Howard, have honored, and been honored by, its command. 
It was repulsed under Sedgwick at Antietam, and under How- 



82 

ard at Fredericksburg ; it was victorious under Gibbon at the 
Second Fredericksburg, and at Gettysburg. At Gettysburg 
its loss in killed and wounded was over one thousand seven 
hundred, near one-half of all engaged ; it captured seventeen 
battle-flags and two thousand three hundred prisoners. Its 
bullets hailed on Pickett's Division and killed or mortally 
wounded four rebel generals, — Barksdale, on the 2d of July, 
with the three on the 3d, Aimistead, Garnett, and Kemper. 
In losses, in killed and wounded, and in capture from the 
enemy of prisoners and flags, it stands pre-eminent among all 
the divisions at Gettysburg. 

Under such generals as Hancock and Gibbon brilliant 
results may be expected. Will the country remember them? 
Attempts have been made to give the credit of saving the day 
at Gettysburg to this and that officer who particicated in the 
battle, and even the President is believed to have been de- 
ceived by imfounded claims. But in the light of this truthful 
narrative can either the President or the country be insensi- 
ble of the transcendent merit of General Meade and his brave 
subordinates ? 

About six o'clock on the afternoon of the 3d of July, my 
duties done upon the field, I quitted it to go to the general. 
My brave horse Dick — poor creature ! his good conduct in the 
battle that afternoon had been complimented by a brigadier, 
— was a sight to see. He was literally covered with blood. 
Struck repeatedly, his right thigh had been ripped open in a 
ghastly manner by a piece of shell, and three bullets were 
lodged deep in his body; and from his wounds the blood oozed 
and ran down his sides and legs, and with the sweat formed a 
bloody foam. Dick's was no mean part in that battle. Good 
conduct in men under such circumstances as he was placed 
might result from a sense of duty; his was the result of his 
bravery. Most horses would have been unmanageable, with 
the flash and roar of arms about, and the shouting. Dick was 
utterly cool, and would have obeyed the rein had it been a 
straw. To Dick belongs the honor of first mounting that 
stormy crest before the enemy, not forty yards away, whose 
bullets smote him; and of being the only horse there during 



83 

the heat of the battle. Even the enemy noticed Dick, and one 
of their reports of the battle mentions the ' ' solitary horse- 
man,^'' who rallied our wavering line. He enabled me to do 
twelve times as much as I could have done on foot. It would 
not be dignified for an officer on foot to run; it is entirely so, 
mounted, to gallop. I do not approve of officers dismounting 
in battle, which is the time of all when they most need to be 
mounted, for thereby they have so much greater facilities for 
being everywhere present. Most officers, however, in close 
action, dismount. Dick deserves well of his country, and one 
day should have a horse monument. If there be " ut sapienti- 
bus placet," an equine elysium, I will send to Charon the 
brass coin, the fee for Dick's passage over, that on the other 
side of the Styx, in those shadowy clover fields, he may nib- 
ble the blossoms forever. 

I had been struck upon the thigh by a bullet, which I think 
must have glanced, and partially spent its force, upon my sad- 
dle. It had pierced the thick cloth of my trousers and two 
thicknesses of underclothing, but had not broken the skin; 
leaving me with an enormous bruise, that for a time benumbed 
the entire leg. At the time of receiving it, I heard the thump, 
and noticed it and the hole in the cloth, into which I thrust 
my finger; and I experienced a feeling of relief, I am sure, 
when I found that my leg was not pierced. I think, when I 
dismounted from my horse after that fight, that I was no very 
comely specimen of humanity. Drenched with sweat, the 
white of battle, by the reaction, now turned to burning red, 
I felt like a boiled man; and had it not been for the exhilara- 
tion at results, I should have been miserable. This kept me 
up, however, and having found a man to transfer the saddle 
from poor Dick, who was now disposed to lie down by loss of 
blood and exhaustion, to another horse, I hobbled on among 
the hospitals in search of General Gibbon. 

The skulkers were about, and they were as loud as any in 
their rejoicings at the victory; and I took a malicious pleasure, 
as I want along and met them, in taunting the sneaks with 
their cowardice, and telling them — it was not true — that 
General Meade had just given the order to the Provost Guards 



84 

to arrest and shoot all men they could find away from then* 
regiments, v7ho could not prove a good account of themselves. 
To find the general was no easy matter. I inquired for both 
Generals Hancock and Gibbon, — I knew well enough that 
they would be together, — and for the hospitals of the Second 
Corps. My search was attended with many incidents that 
were provokingly humorous. The stupidity of most men is 
amazing. I would ask of a man I met: " Do y<)u know, sir, 
where the Second Corps hospitals are?" " The Twelfth Corps 
hospital is there!" Then I would ask sharply: " Did you un- 
derstand me to ask for the Twelfth Corps hospital?'' " Then 
why tell me what I did not ask, or care to know?" Then 
stupidity would stare, or mutter about the ingratitude of some 
people for kindness. Did I ask for the generals I was looking 
for, they would announce the interesting fact, in reply, that 
they had seen some other generals. Some were sure that 
General Hancock or Gibbon was dead. They had seen his 
dead body. This was a falsehood, and they knew it. Then 
it was General Longstreet. This was also, as they knew, a 
falsehood. 

Oh, sorrowful was the sight to see so many wounded ! The 
whole neighborhood in rear of the field became one vast hos- 
pital, of miles in extent. Some could walk to the hospitals; 
such as could not were taken upon stretchers, from the places 
where they fell, to selected points, and thence the ambulances 
bore them, a miserable load, to their destination. Many were 
brought to the buildings along the Taneytown road, and, too 
badly wounded to be carried further, died, and were buried 
there; Union and rebel soldiers together. At every house and 
barn and shed the wounded were; by many a cooling brook, 
on many a shady slope or grassy glade, the red flags beckoned 
them to their tented asylums; and there they gathered in num- 
bers, a great army: a mutilated, bruised mass of humanity. 
Men with gray hair and furrowed cheeks, and soft-lipped, 
beardless boys, were there; for these bullets have made no 
distinction between age and youth. Every conceivable wound 
that iron and lead can make, blunt or sharp, bullet, ball and 
shell, piercing, bruising, tearing, was there; sometimes so 



85 

light that a bandage and cold water would restore the soldier 
to the ranks again; sometimes so severe that the poor victim 
in his hopeless pain, remediless save by the only panacea for 
all mortal sufferings, invoked that. The men are generally 
cheerful, and even those with frightful wounds often are talk- 
ing with animated faces of nothing but the battle and the vic- 
tory; but some were downcast, their faces distorted with pain. 
Some have undergone the surgeon's work; some, like men at 
a ticket office, awaiting patiently their turn, to have an arm 
or a leg cut off. Some walk about with an arm in a sling; 
some sit idly upon the ground; some at full length lie upon a 
little straw, or a blanket, with their brawny, now blood- 
stained, limbs bare, and you may see where the minie bullet 
has struck, or the shell has torn. From a small round hole 
upon many a manly breast the red blood trickles; but the pal- 
lid cheek, the hard-drawn breath and dim-closed eyes, tell how 
near the source of life it has gone. The surgeons with coats 
off and sleeves rolled up, and the hospital attendants with 
green bands upon their caps, are about their work; and their 
faces and clothes are spotted with blood; and though they look 
weary and tired, their work goes systematically and steadily 
on. How much and how long they have worked, the piles of 
legs, arms, feet, hands, fingers, about, partially tell. Such 
sounds are heard, sometimes, — you would not have heard 
them upon the field, — as convince that bodies, bones, sinews, 
and muscles are not made of insensible stone. Near by ap- 
pears a row of small fresh mounds placed side by side. They 
were not there day before yesterday ; they will become more 
numerous every day. 

Such things I saw as I rode along. At last I found the gen- 
erals. General Gibbon was sitting in a chair that had been 
borrowed somewhere, with his wounded shoulder bare, and an 
attendant was bathing it with cold water. General Hancock 
was nearby in an ambulance. They were at the tents of the 
Second Corps hospitals, which w^ere on Rock Run. As I ap- 
proached General Gibbon, when he saw me he began to "hur- 
rah," and wave his right hand; he had heard the result. I 
said: "0 General! long and ivell may you wave"; and he 



86 

shook me warmly by the hand. General Gibbon was struck 
by a bullet in the left shoulder, which had passed from the 
front, through the flesh, and out behind, fracturing the 
shoulder blade, and inflicting a severe but not dangerous 
wound. He thinks he was the mark of a sharp-shooter of the 
enemy, hid in the bushes near where he and I had sat so long 
during the cannonade ; and he was wounded and taken off the 
field before the fire of the main lines of infantry had com- 
menced ; he being, at the time he was hit, near the left of his 
division. General Hancock was struck a little later, near the 
same part of the field, by a bullet piercing and almost going 
through his thigh, without touching the bone, however. His 
wound was severe, also. He was carried back out of range, 
but before he would be carried off the field he lay upon the 
ground in sight of the crest, where he could see something of 
the fight, until he knew what would be the result. And 
there, at General Gibbon's request, I had to tell him and a 
large voluntary crowd of the wounded who pressed around, 
now for the wounds they showed not rebuked for closing up to 
the generals, the story of the fight. I was nothing loath ; and 
I must say, though I used sometimes before the war to make 
speeches, that I never had so enthusiastic an audience before. 
Cries of "good!" "glorious!" frequently interrupted me, and 
the storming of the wall was applauded by enthusiastic tears, 
and the waving of battered, bloody hands. 

By the custom of the service, the general had the right to 
have me along with him, while away with his wound; but 
duty and inclination attracted me still to the field, and I 
obtained the general's consent to stay. Accompanying Gen- 
eral Gibbon to Westminster, the nearest point to which rail- 
road trains then ran, and seeing him transferred from an 
ambulance to the cars for Baltimore, on the 4th, the next day 
I returned to the field to his division, since his wounding in 
the command of General Harrow. 

On the 6th of July, while my bullet bruise was yet too in- 
flamed and sensitive for me to be good for much in the way 
of duty, — the division was then halted for the day some four 
miles from the field on the Baltimore turnpike, — I could not 



87 

repress the desire or omit the opportunity to see again where 
the battle had been. With the right stirrup strap shortened • 
in a manner to favor the bruised leg, I could ride my horse at 
a walk without serious discomfort. It seemed very strange 
upon approaching the horse-shoe crest again not to see it 
covered with the thousands of troops, and the horses and 
guns; but they were all gone, — the armies, to my seeming, 
had vanished, — and on that lovely summer morning the still- 
ness and silence of death pervaded the localities where so 
recently the shouts and the cannon had thundered. The 
recent rains had washed out many an unsightly spot and 
smoothed many a harrowed trace of the conflict; but one still 
needed no guide save eyes to follow the track of that storm 
which the storms of heaven were powerless soon to entirely 
efface. The spade and shovel, so far as a little earth for the 
human bodies would render their task done, had completed 
their work, — a great labor that, — but one still might see 
under some concealing bush or sheltering rock what once had 
been a man, and the thousands of stricken horses still lay 
scattered as they had died. The scattered small arms and 
accoutrements had been collected and carried away, almost all 
that were of any value; but great numbers of bent and 
splintered muskets, rent knapsacks and haversacks, bruised 
canteens, shreds of caps, coats, trousers of blue or gray cloth, 
worthless belts and cartridge boxes, torn blankets, ammuni- 
tion boxes, broken w^heels, smashed timbers, shattered gun 
carriages, parts of harness, — of all that men or horses wear 
or use in battle, — were scattered broadcast over miles of the 
field. From these one could tell where the fight had been 
hottest. The rifle-pits and epaulements, and the trampled 
grass, told where the lines had stood, and the batteries; the 
former being thicker where the enemy had been than those of 
our construction. No soldier was to be seen, but numbers of 
civilians and boys, and some girls, even, were curiously loiter- 
ing about the field, and their faces showed, not sadness or 
horror, but only staring wonder or smirking curiosity. They 
looked for mementos of the battle to keep, they said, but their 
furtive attempts to conceal an uninjured musket or untorn 



88 

blanket — they had been told that all property left here 
belonged to the government — showed that the love of gain 
was an ingredient, at least, of their motive for coming here. 
Of course there was not the slightest objection to their taking 
anything they could find now, but their manner of doing it 
was the objectionable thing. I could now understand why 
soldiers had been asked a dollar for a small strip of old linen 
to bind their own wounds and not be compelled to go off to 
the hospitals. 

Never elsewhere upon any field have I seen such abundant 
evidences of a terrific fire of cannon and musketry as upon 
this. Along the enemy's position, where our shells and shot 
had struck during the cannonade of the Third, the trees had 
cast their trunks and branches as if they had been icicles shaken 
by a blast; and graves of the rebels' making, and dead horses, 
and scattered accoutrements, showed that other things besides 
trees had been struck by our projectiles. I must say that, 
having seen the work of their guns upon the same occasion, I 
was gratified to see these things. Along the slope of Gulp's 
Hill, in front of the position of the Twelfth, and the First 
Division of the First Corps, the trees were almost literally 
peeled, from the ground up, some fifteen or twenty feet, so 
thick upon them were the scars the bullets had made. Upon 
a single tree, in several instances not over a foot and a half in 
diameter, I actually counted as many as two hundred and fifty 
bullet marks. The ground was covered by the little twigs that 
had been cut off by the hail-storm of lead. Such were the 
evidences of the storm under which Ewell's bold rebels assaulted 
our breastworks on the night of the 2d and the morning of the 
3d of July. And those works looked formidable, zig-zagging 
along those rocky crests, even now, when not a musket was 
behind them. What madness on the part of the enemy to 
have attacked them! All along through those bullet-stormed 
woods were interspersed little patches of fresh earth raised a 
foot or so above the surrounding ground. Some were very 
near the front of the works, and near by upon a tree, whose 
bark had been smoothed by an axe, written in red chalk, 
would be the words, not in fine hand-writing: 75 Rebils her id 



89 

hear "; " |^^54 Rehs there,''' and so on. Such was the burial, 
and such the epitaph, of many of those famous men, once led 
by the mighty Stonewall Jackson. Oh, this damned rebellion 
will make brutes of us all, if it is not soon quelled I Our own 
men were buried in graves, not trenches; and upon a piece of 
board, or stave of a barrel, or bit of cracker box, placed at the 
head, were neatly cut or pencilled the name and regiment of 
the one buried in each. This practice was general; but of 
course there must be some exceptions, for sometimes the can- 
non's load had not left enough of a man to recognize or name. 
The reasons here for the more careful interment of our own 
dead than such as was given to the dead of the enemy are 
obvious, and I think satisfactory: Our own dead were usually 
buried not long after they fell, and without any general order 
to that effect. It was a work that the men's hearts were in, 
as soon as the light was over, and opportunity offered, to hunt 
out their dead companions, to make them a grave in some 
convenient spot, and decently composed, with their blankets 
wrapped about them, to cover them tenderly with earth, and 
mark their resting place. Such burials were not without as 
scalding tears as ever fell upon the face of coffined mortality. 
The dead of the enemy could not be buried until after the close 
of the whole battle. The army was about to move, — some of 
it was already upon the march before such burial commenced. 
Tools, save those carried by the pioneers, were many miles 
away with the trains, and the burying parties were required 
to make all haste in their work in order to be ready to move 
with their regiments. To make long, shallow trenches; to 
collect the rebel dead, often hundreds in a place, and to cover 
them hastily with a little earth, without name, number, or 
mark, save the shallow mound above them, — their names, of 
course, they did not know, — was the best that could be done. 
I should have been glad to have seen more formal burial even 
of these men of the rebellion, both because hostilities should 
cease with death, and of the respect I have for them as my 
brave, though deluded countrymen. I found fault with such 
burial at that time, though I knew that the best was done that 
could be under the circumstances; but it may perhaps soften 



90 

somewhat the rising feehngs upon this subject of any who 
may be disposed to share mine, that under similar circum- 
stances, had the issue of the battle been reversed, our own 
dead would have had no burial at all at the hands of the 
enemy; bat, stripped of their clothing, their naked bodies 
would have been left to rot, and their bones to whiten, upon 
the top of the ground where they fell. Plenty of such examples 
of rebel magnanimity are not wanting; and one occurred on 
this field too. Our dead that fell into the hands of the enemy 
on the 1st of July had been plundered of all their clothing, but 
they were left unburied until our own men buried them after 
the rebels had retreated, at the end of the battle. 

All was bustle and noise in the little town of Gettysburg as 
I entered it on my tour of the field. From the afternoon of 
the 1st to the morning of the 4th of July, the enemy was in 
possession. Very many of the inhabitants had, upon the first 
approach of the enemy, or upon the retirement of our troops, 
fled their homes, and the town, not to return until after the 
battle. Now the town was a hospital, where gray and blue 
mingled in about equal proportions. The public buildings, the 
court house, the churches, and many private dwellings, were 
full of wounded. There had been in some of the streets a good 
deal of fighting; and shells had riddled the houses from side 
to side. And the rebels had done their work of pillage there, 
too. In spite of the smooth-sounding general order of the 
rebel commander, enjoining a sacred regard for private prop- 
erty, — the order was really good, and would sound marvel- 
lously well abroad, or in history, — all stores of drugs and 
medicine, of clothing, tinware, and all groceries, had been 
rifled and emptied, without pay or offer of recompense. 
Libraries, public and private, had been entered, and the 
books scattered about the yards, or destroyed. Great num- 
bers of private dwellings had been entered and occupied with- 
out ceremony, and whatever was liked had been appropriated, 
or wantonly destroyed. Furniture had been smashed and 
beds ripped open, and apparently unlicensed pillage had 
reigned. Citizens and women who had remained had been 
kindly relieved of their money, their jewelry, and their 



91 

watches, — all this by the high-toned chivalry, the army of 
the magnanimous Lee! Put these things by the side of the 
acts of the " vandal Yankees," in Virginia, and then let mad 
rebeldom prate of honor! But the people, the women and 
children that had fled, were returning, or had returned, to 
their homes, — such homes! — and amid the general havoc 
were restoring, as they could, order to the desecrated firesides. 
And the faces of them all plainly told that, with all they had 
lost, and bad as was the condition of all things they found, 
they were better pleased with such homes than with wander- 
ing houseless in the fields, with the rebels there. All had 
treasures of incidents; of the battle, and of the occupation of 
the enemy, — wonderful sights, escapes, witnessed encounters, 
wounds, the marvellous passage of shells or bullets, — which, 
upon the asking, or even without, they were willing to share 
with the stranger. I heard of no more than one or two cases 
of personal injury received by any of the inhabitants. One 
woman was said to have been killed while at her wash-tub, 
sometime during the battle; but probably by a stray bullet, 
coming a very long distance, from our own men. For the 
next hundred years Gettysburg will be rich in legends and 
traditions of the battle. I rode through the cemetery on 
" Cemetery Hill." How those quiet sleepers must have been 
astounded in their graves when the twenty-pound Parrott 
guns thundered over them, and the solitary shot crushed their 
grave-stones! The flowers, roses, and creeping vines, that 
pious hands had planted to bloom and shed their odors over the 
ashes of dear ones gone, were trampled upon the ground, and 
black with the cannon's soot. A dead horse lay by the marble 
shaft, and over it the marble finger pointed to the sky. The 
marble lamb that had slept its white sleep on the grave of a 
child now lies blackened upon a broken gun carriage. Such 
are the incongruities and jumblings of battle. 

I looked away to the group of trees, — the rebel gunners 
know what ones I mean, and so do the survivors of Pickett's 
Division,-^ and a strange fascination led me thither. How 
thick are the marks of battle as I approach, — the graves of 
the men of the Third Division of the Second Corps, the sphn- 



92 

tered oaks, the scattered horses ; seventy-one dead horses were 
on a spot some fifty yards square, near the position of Wood- 
ruff's Battery, and where he fell, 

I stood solitary upon the crest by 'Hhe trees,'' where less 
than three days ago I had stood before ; but now how changed 
is all the eye beholds. Do these thick mounds cover the fiery 
hearts that in the battle rage swept the crest and stormed the 
wall? I read their names, — them, alas, I do not know, — but 
I see the regiments marked on their frail monuments, — "20th 
Mass. Vols.," "69 P. V.," "1st Minn. Vols.," and the rest,— 
they are all represented, and, as they fought, commingle here. 
So I am not alone, — these, my brethren of the fight are with 
me. Sleep, noble brave! The foe shall not desecrate your 
sleep. Yonder thick trenches will hold them. As long as 
patriotism is a virtue, and treason a crime, your deeds have 
made this crest, your resting place, hallowed ground. 

But I have seen and said enough of this battle. The unfort- 
unate wounding of my general so early in the action of the 3d 
of July, leaving important duties, which in the unreasoning 
excitement oi^the moment I in part assumed, enable me to do 
for the successful issue something which under other circum- 
stances would not have fallen to my rank or place. Deploring 
the occasion for taking away from the division in that 
moment of its need its soldierly, appropriate head, so cool, so 
clear, I am yet glad, as that was to be, that his example and 
his tuition have not been entirely in vain to me, and that my 
impulses then prompted me to do somewhat as he might have 
done had he been on the field. The encomiums of officers, so 
numerous, and some of so high rank, generously accorded me 
for my conduct upon that occasion, — I am not without van- 
ity, — were gratifying. My position as a staff officer gave me 
an opportunity to see much — perhaps as much as any one 
person — of that conflict. My observations were not so par- 
ticular as if I had been attached to a smaller command ; not 
so general as may have been those of a staff officer of the gen- 
eral commanding the army, but of such as they were, — my 
heart was there and I could do no less than write about them, 
— in the intervals between marches, and during the subse- 



93 

quent repose of the army, at the close of the campaign, I 
have put somewhat upon these pages, I make no apology for 
the egotism, if such there is, of this account ; it is not designed 
to be a history, but simply my account, of the battle. It 
should not be assumed, if I have told of some occurrences, 
that there were not other important ones. I would not have 
it supposed that I have attempted to do full justice to the 
good conduct of the fallen, or the survivors, of the First and 
Twelfth Corps. Others must tell of them, — I did not see 
their work. 

A full account of the battle as it was, will never, can never, 
be made. Who could sketch the changes, the constant shift- 
ing of the bloody panorama! It is not possible. The official 
reports may give results, as to losses, with statements of 
attacks and repulses ; they may also note the means by which 
results were obtained, which is a statement of the number and 
kind of the force employed ; but the connection between means 
and results, the mode, the battle proper, these reports touch 
lightly. Two prominent reasons at least exist which go far 
to account for the general inadequacy of these official reports, 
or to account for their giving no true idea of what they assume 
to describe ; the literary infirmity of the reporters, and their 
not seeing themselves and their commands as others v\^ould 
have seen them. And factions, and parties, and politics, the 
curse of this Republic are already putting in their unreason- 
able demands for the foremost honors of this field. "General 
Hooker won Gettysburg." How? JNot with the army in per- 
son, or by infinitesimal influence — leaving it almost four 
days before the battle, when both armies were scattered, and 
fifty miles apart! Was ever claim so absurd? Hooker, and 
he alone, won the result at Chancellorsville. "General How- 
ard won Gettysburg." "Sickles saved the day." Just 
Heaven, save the poor Army of the Potomac from its friends! 
It has more to dread, and less to hope, from them than from 
the red bannered hosts of rebellion. The States prefer each 
her claim for the sole brunt and winning of the fight. "Penn- 
sylvania won it," — "New York won it." Did not old Greece, 
or some tribe from about the sources of the Nile, win it? For 



94 

modern GTreeks — -from Cork — and African Hanuibals were 
there. Those intermingled graves along the crest, bearing the 
names of every loyal State save one or two, should admonish 
these geese to cease their cackle. One of the armies of the 
country won the battle ; and that army supposes that General 
Meade led it upon that occasion. If it be not one of the les- 
sons that this war teaches, that we have a country, para- 
mount, and supreme over faction and party and State, then 
was the blood of fifty thousand citizens shed on this field in 
vain. For the reasons mentioned, of this battle, greater than 
Waterloo, a history, just, comprehensive, complete, will never 
be written. By and by, out of the chaos of trash and false- 
hood that the newspapers hold, out of the disjointed mass of 
reports, out of the traditions and tales that come down from 
the field, some eye that never saw the battle will select, and 
some pen will write, what will be named the history. With 
that the world will be, and if we are alive we must be, con- 
tent. 

Already, as I rode down from the heights, Nature's myste- 
rious loom was at work, joining and weaving on her ceaseless 
web what the shells had broken there. Another spring shall 
green these trampled slopes, and flowers planted by unseen 
hands shall bloom upon these graves; another autumn, and the 
yellow harvest shall ripen there, — all not in less but higher 
perfection for this poured-out blood. In another decade of 
years, in another century, or age, we hope that the Union, by 
the same means, may repose in a securer peace, and bloom in 
a higher civilization. Then what matter it, if lame Tradition 
glean on this field and hand down her garbled sheaf if — deft 
Story with furtive fingers plait her ballad wreaths, deeds of her 
heroes here, — or if stately History fill, as she list, her arbi- 
trary tablet, the sounding record of this fight, — Tradition, 
Story, History, all, will not efface the true, grand Epic of 
Gettysburg. 



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